We have briefly presented our winners from the Cycle I DefTech Forges in the previous article. Below, we take a closer look at each winning company’s solution. While the Estonian DefTech Forge centred on managing aerial threats, the French DefTech Forge shifted focus to ground connectivity and unmanned ground vehicles (UGV). Soraccel and SMÆSH proved their ability to strengthen operational resilience, while EdgeX Robotics delivered autonomous, modular mobility through its UGV platform.
The development of cutting-edge defence technologies has become imperative in an evolving battlefield environment. This is particularly true for unmanned aerial systems (UAS), whose versatility and adaptability make them extremely valuable on a modern battlefield. Beyond their tactical flexibility, UAS are highly scalable and affordable, enabling high-volume production and massification at significantly lower operational costs than traditional systems.
In Ukraine, drones now constitute a major component of the battlefield, shifting the centre of gravity from traditional armoured warfare to drone warfare. As their production has risen to industrial levels, defence systems must adapt accordingly.
In line with these challenges, the DefTech Forges initiative directly addresses these operational challenges by offering defence start-ups a live-testing platform to evaluate, refine, and prove solutions that counter or bypass traditional technical bottlenecks. The events allowed innovators to test systems against core military challenges.
Delivering cost-effective precision with SADURS (Rannon)
The current market offers expensive and sometimes complex-to-operate single-use interceptors, air-defence missiles, directed-energy weapons, and high-calibre machine guns.
Our Latvian winner, Rannon, which took part in the Estonian DefTech Forges, brings SADURS to the field: a small anti-drone unguided rocket system capable of carrying 4 to 12 MRL (multi-rocket launcher) pods. With its simple design and cost-effective materials, SADURS delivers an industry-scalable, commoditised ammunition solution deployable against multiple types of drones.
Securing air- and ground-based defence with the Multilayer Counter-UAS System (Tempterno)
Tempterno Defence, an Estonian engineering start-up, develops a platform-agnostic multi-rocket launcher (MRL) and the associated guided rockets. The system can engage both C-UAS threats and ground targets and can be deployed from 10-inch quadcopters, fixed-wing UAS, or mobile and fixed ground stations.
This solution directly addresses the need for precision engagement systems in the terminal phase. Its AI-enabled target recognition and C2 architecture enable the detection, tracking, and engagement of threats through the critical terminal stage of an engagement.
The system allows forces to counter cheap enemy threats and drone swarms while preserving a favourable cost-effectiveness rate.
Reinforcing navigation with Kilo (Kova Labs)
Finnish start-up Kova Labs addresses a critical operational challenge with Kilo, a fully autonomous drone capable of flying below the canopy and fulfilling missions without GNSS, continuous communications, or pre-mapped terrain.
The solution relies on a vision-based, on-board autonomy engine that generates real-time 3D imagery, enabling unmanned systems to navigate and operate autonomously in previously inaccessible denied environments. It can identify viable paths through heavily cluttered terrain, including beneath dense forest canopy, while running on commodity hardware and software.
Kilo further strengthens tactical success by enabling faster reconnaissance-strike cycles in operationally constrained environments.
Achieving multi-mission capability and robustness with NUUN (EdgeX)
Developed by Polish company EdgeX, NUUN is an ultra-modular unmanned ground platform designed to meet the specific requirements of the battlefield. NUUN therefore combines a high level of field repairability, enabled by its individually driven wheels that can be easily replaced in operational conditions, with strong modularity features. While logistics is currently the platform’s primary use case, NUUN can easily integrate different types of payloads to adapt to operational needs and respond to evolving battlefield requirements.
Currently remotely operated, EdgeX is developing its own autonomy layer to enable NUUN to autonomously reach a predefined position in contested environments and safely return to its point of departure.
SMÆSHing connectivity on the modern battlefield (SMÆSH)
Modern battlefields make reliable connectivity increasingly challenging, particularly in contested and jammed environments. German company SMÆSH addresses this challenge with a low-cost, secure, and modular mesh network designed to connect drones, robotic assets, sensors, smartphones, and temporary relays.
Built around mission continuity, the system allows units to extend coverage, absorb node losses, and maintain degraded but operational communications. Its self-healing architecture automatically reroutes traffic whenever individual nodes are jammed or destroyed, keeping the network functional.
SMÆSH also relies on a proprietary routing algorithm that keeps nodes dormant until needed, reducing both power consumption and detectability. Combined with commercial off-the-shelf hardware, this results in a cost-efficient and resilient connectivity solution. All raw materials required for SMÆSH components are also sourced within the European Union, further strengthening supply-chain independence for European defence systems.
Seeking resilience for swarm deployment (Soraccel)
French company Soraccel addresses the gap between advanced GNSS-denied navigation solutions and the emerging attritable mass doctrine, which requires affordable and scalable unmanned platforms.
The tech start-up has developed an autonomous navigation and perception layer enabling UxVs to operate in GNSS-denied environments by combining navigation-grade IMUs, stereo vision, barometers, magnetometers, and onboard sensors to provide stable GNSS-free localization. The system generates real-time 3D maps of the surrounding environment and enables autonomous adaptation to mission requirements.
This technology layer has the potential to support future multi-domain operations, extending beyond individual UAVs by enabling coordinated teams of UxVs to operate in complex and contested environments. By combining swarm coordination and autonomous exploration, Soraccel is working towards enabling unmanned systems to execute missions with reduced operator workload under uncertain battlefield conditions.
Deploying Phase II with the European Defence Agency
All the winners are currently facing Phase II Operational Experimentation in Portugal in coordination with the European Defence Agency. This phase moves each solution beyond controlled testing and mentorship into real operational conditions, where their performance will be assessed by military end-users under conditions that mirror actual field deployment.
The results will determine each team’s next steps as they continue optimising their solutions to further advance into the market.
