Naval Group brought its governmental, industrial and academic partners together on 30 and 31 May for the third consecutive year at Naval Innovation Days on the Toulon Naval Base.
Over the course of these two days, Naval Group presented its innovations at the service of naval-force combat superiority.
The exchanges addressed the projects that need to be accelerated to allow Naval Group’s client navies, the first of which is the French Navy, to fulfil their current and future missions.
Eric Papin, Director of Innovation and Technological Expertise said: “The last few years have seen a rapid ramping up on the international stage of the competencies of not only the armed forces but also industry from emerging economies.
“If we want to ensure that the French Navy maintains its technological combat superiority and maintain our attractiveness for the export market, we must place innovation at the heart of our strategy and accelerate our initiatives.”
A live demonstration showed a maintenance operation on a vessel at sea performed collaboratively, thanks to virtual reality and augmented reality, between the crew and a Naval Group technician located in the Operational Digitally Integrated Support Center at the Toulon Naval Base.
Roundtable discussions, bringing together Naval Group, the French Joint Chiefs of Staff, the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA – Direction générale de l’armement) and major industrial partners, allowed the challenges and keys to success for continuous innovation at the service of naval programmes to be shared.
Workshops and demonstrations also allowed them to discuss the current innovation projects, express the future needs and build common roadmaps.
Naval Group is a prime contractor for the French naval defence industry and capitalises daily on an innovation ecosystem, which it wished to associate with the Naval Innovation Days.
These industrial (Dassault Systèmes, Cobham) and academic (ENSTA Paris Tech, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Université d’Aix-Marseille) partners or innovative start-up SMEs (ALSEAMAR, SNIPS, Studio NYX, EGERIE) were present for a wide variety of subjects such as artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing or cyber defence.
The ceremony for the La Pérouse Prize, awarded by the Naval Group Scientific Council, took place on 31 May.