European Defence Fund Supports STORE Project to Enhance Land Forces' Imaging Systems with AI

The European Defence Fund (EDF) is providing financial backing to the STORE collaborative project, aimed at accelerating the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and shared databases into imaging systems for land forces in Europe.

This initiative is crucial as threats such as hypersonic missiles and combat drones continue to evolve, highlighting the strategic importance of optronic sensors capable of delivering high performance in the field.

The Shared daTabase for Optronics image Recognition and Evaluation (STORE) project, which has a duration of 36 months and an estimated total cost of €23.3 million, is funded under the EDF's Research actions – Digital transformation program. The project seeks to establish Europe's first shared, scalable database of defence imagery and explore various algorithm solutions for threat detection using AI. In addition to technical advancements, STORE will address challenges related to data governance and the cost-effective development of sovereign technologies.

Thales France is leading the consortium of partners involved in the project, which includes prominent European industrial and technological entities such as Safran E&D, ONERA, Leonardo, GMV, and others from Spain, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Netherlands, Norway, and Estonia.

The primary goal of the STORE project is to enhance warfighters' situational awareness on the battlefield by combining optronic sensors with AI-based analysis techniques. This integration is expected to improve tactical decision-making and reaction times, ultimately enhancing survivability in combat scenarios.