Companies from Ukraine, Czechia, and Poland were named winners of the Persistent Airfield Denial innovation competition, which was held by NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre (JATEC), the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine reported.
The Czech team LPP Holding took first place, presenting a long-range solution designed to work with minimal dependence on external control. Second place went to innovators from Poland with a comprehensive proposal for the pre-planned destruction of elements of the enemy’s airfield infrastructure. Third place went to developers from Ukraine, who proposed an artificial intelligence module for targeting. The solution is expected to increase the autonomy and accuracy of the attack systems.
The objective was to identify solutions capable of restricting the adversary’s use of airfield infrastructure and aviation assets over the long term. A key feature of the competition is the involvement of Ukrainian combat experience in the evaluation of the proposed technologies. Both the technological novelty of the solutions and the possibility of their application in a modern combat environment were assessed.
In total, the organizers received more than 60 applications. Nine teams presented their solutions during the final stage of the challenge in Warsaw, Poland.
