On 24 January 2024, the Federated Advanced Cyber physical Test range (FACT) project consortium held its kick-off meeting in Oslo, hosted by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (Project Coordinator).
FACT aims to provide an unprecedented new European capability to test and verify the cyber vulnerability of equipment. The project will pave the way for the EU’s autonomy and ability to create and integrate a federated cyber-physical test bed.
Participants included representatives of 19 participating entities from 15 Member States and Associated Country. It was an opportunity for all to present themselves and express how they will respectively contribute to the project. The Work Package leaders also presented their project plan and their expected final results.
The consortium members recalled the urgent need to strengthen cyber defence capabilities and to increase coordination and cooperation between nations in order to improve the ability to prevent, detect, defend against, recover from and deter cyber-attacks on military systems.
Alina Mezciema, Head of International Projects at LMT noted the caliber of participating organizations:
It’s an honour for LMT as 5G competence leaders to participate in such a unique project, capably led by our Norwegian partners KONGSBERG. We look forward to collaborate with all of the participants, each industry leaders in their own right.
A project selected by the European Defence Fund 2022
The European Commission has awarded €26.9 million over a three-year period to the FACT project led by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace.
The European Defence Fund (EDF) is a financial instrument created by the European Union in 2017 as part of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The first call for proposals was published in 2021. FACT is one of the 41 projects selected for the 2022 EDF (out of 134 proposals submitted).
What comes next?
Regarding the next steps, the FACT consortium confirmed that the Concept of Operations (CONOPS) will be presented at the next General Assembly in June 2024. It will define the targeted performance of the proposed system for all stakeholders and include the description of its use in a centralised and federated manner. It will be the basis for defining a business model and developing a sustainable range/laboratory capability as a common European asset after the project.
The FACT consortium
