U-HARRIER - HEAVY LIFT UAV
Software and Operator Interfaces for Europe's Heavy Lift Unmanned Platform
In U-HARRIER we are one of nine partners from six EU Member States working on a heavy lift UAV platform that Europe does not currently produce.
The Challenge
Europe has no domestic, in production unmanned platform in the 300 kg class. This is the payload where a small unit can actually be sustained. Below it, platforms carry parcels. Above it, cost and infrastructure requirements rise sharply.
The platform also has to work where satellite navigation is jammed, communication with the operator drops and sensor data cannot be trusted. Systems designed for permissive conditions fail exactly there. Until a European design exists, the capability has to be sourced from outside the Union.
The Goal
The goal of U-HARRIER is to design, develop and validate a heavy lift unmanned platform in the 300 kg class, built for contested, GNSS denied environments. It would be the first design of its kind in Europe. The platform combines payload capacity, ballistic protection, electromagnetic shielding, signature reduction, cyber resilience, AI driven structural health monitoring and compatibility with NATO and EU logistics standards, so that it can be operated alongside allied forces.
What do we build
We build the simulator for the platform. It serves three purposes.
Training. Operators and maintenance crews learn to work with the platform in simulation, including in the conditions it is designed for: degraded navigation, lost communication, unreliable sensor data. Nobody has to practice this on real hardware.
Platform behavior. The simulator models how the vehicle behaves, so design decisions and operating procedures can be tested before a physical platform exists.
AI for production. In the final phase we implement artificial intelligence for production of the platform.
Project highlights
- EU funded research action, €4 million, European Defence Fund 2025
- 36 months, nine partners, six EU Member States
- 300 kg payload class, no in production European equivalent
- Designed for GNSS denied and degraded environments
- Aligned with the European Drone Defence Initiative and Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030
