Ocean2020 (Open Cooperation for European mAritime awareNess), the largest European defence tender in maritime security technologies, is a military research programme promoted by the European Defence Fund with Leonardo as the lead partner, involving 15 countries and 42 partners.

The project enables the integration of maritime surveillance and interdiction missions, of uncrewed platforms of different types (fixed-wing, rotary-wing, surface and underwater) with ships’ command and control centres, and provides for satellite data exchange with command and control centres on land. The first demonstration took place in 2019 in the Mediterranean, also involving the AWHERO remotely piloted helicopter.

This new remotely piloted aircraft is unveiled in 2019 at the International Air and Space Exhibition in Le Bourget, Paris. Designed to perform military and civil missions, it is entirely developed and built by Leonardo: from the aircraft to the suite of sensors, from the mission management system to the ground control station. It is the latest evolution of the FALCO family of Remotely Piloted Air Systems (RPAS) with the following features: a maximum payload of 350 kg, over 24 hours of autonomy, a 30,000 ft ceiling and a satellite data link for operations outside terrestrial radio coverage, all with a maximum take-off weight of 1.3 tonnes.

This is an international programme, launched by the UK in 2018 and subsequently joined by Italy (in 2019) and Japan (in 2022), focusing on the design and implementation of a next-generation aircraft system that will enter operation by 2035 for multi-domain missions. It is the future air combat system: a ‘core platform’ connected with other peripheral systems, piloted and otherwise, which uses cloud architecture and powerful datalinks to process, analyse, prioritise and make available vast amounts of data.

Part of the Leonardo Labs ecosystem, the Aerotech Academy is a strategic pool for developing professional skills established in partnership with the University of Naples Federico II. Based at the company’s site at Pomigliano d'Arco (Naples), it offers advanced training courses on frontier engineering topics such as digitisation, Industry 4.0 and next-generation aircraft.

At the heart of Leonardo’s digital transformation processes, the davinci-1 is composing a ‘new grammar’ of scientific and technological knowledge. This supercomputer is a knowledge accelerator equipped with 100 supercomputing units, a total power output of over 5PFlops (five million billion floating point operations per second), a high-performance network, and a cloud storage system using the latest hardware and software technologies for a storage capacity of around 20 million Gigabytes. With the davinci-1 Leonardo can accelerate its progress in the disruptive technologies, through Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, High-Performance Computing (HPC) and quantum technologies.

The AW609 tiltrotor is a concentrate of technological innovation that surpasses the requisites of fixed wing and the performance of rotary wing aircraft. It has a top speed of over 500 km/h, a range of nearly 1,400 km extendable to over 2,000 km with auxiliary fuel tanks, and - through its ability to change the position of its two rotors in less than 60 seconds - can take off vertically like a helicopter and fly like a fixed-wing aircraft. The AW609 can perform different missions: passenger transport, medical assistance, civil defence, search and rescue. It was the star of the 2021 Dubai Expo inside the innovative ‘Casa Agusta’ terminal, built to relaunch the well-known brand as part of Leonardo.

The Group’s cutting-edge technologies integrate - within a single platform - data from satellites (Copernicus and PRISMA), telecommunications systems (Athena Fidus), drones, high-resolution fire-fighting systems, video-acoustic sensors, Artificial Intelligence, 5G networks and Big Data Analytics. The new X-2030, a so-called C5I solution, or ‘command, control, communication, computer, cyber and intelligence’, can correlate large quantities of data from various sources in real-time to enable situational awareness (necessary for managing significant events), the protection of an area at risk, and the security of an entire territory.

The Leonardo Cyber & Security Academy in Genoa is a centre for the advanced training, study and integration of cyber-security skills to support the digital transition. An educational resource geared towards bridging the training gap - of companies, institutions and citizens - related to the skills needed to face challenges and threats in the cyber environment. At the ‘technological heart’ of the Academy are the Cyber Range and Cyber Trainer platforms, which leverage virtualisation and interoperability to simulate immersive and complex operational scenarios by creating digital twins of networks, systems, and applications to be protected, as well as threats and tools for attack and defence.

A mission to return to the Moon and, for the first time, with a female astronaut. Leonardo’s capabilities and technology will enable Italy to play a leading role in the Artemis I mission. The Orion spacecraft will carry the capsule housing the astronauts during the journey, and the European Service Module (ESM) will provide electricity, propulsion, thermal control, air and water. At its Nerviano (Milan) factory, Leonardo will build the photovoltaic assemblies (PVAs) that make up the four ‘wings’ of the service module, and the electronic units (PCDUs) for controlling and distributing energy in the spacecraft. Thales Alenia Space will build the structure of the ESM module and critical subsystems, including the micrometeorite protection and thermal control system. Orion was launched on 16 November 2022 (without astronauts on board) for a test flight from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Under a contract to complete the development and integration of the new European Common Radar System (ECRS) Mk2 radar for the Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoon fleet, the first radar was delivered in April. Designed and manufactured by Leonardo UK at its Edinburgh and Luton facilities, the new sensor will transform airspace patrol capability by enabling aircraft to simultaneously detect, identify and track multiple ground and sea targets, providing enhanced defence capabilities and advanced self-protection capabilities for the skies.

Two optical instruments will be the technological backbone of PLATiNO (miniature High-Tech Space Platform), an Italian Space Agency programme using mini-satellites to support a wide range of missions in Earth observation, telecommunications and science. Leonardo will produce an ultra-compact, ultra-high resolution optical camera for PLATiNO 3, with a ground detail level (spatial resolution) of at least 50 cm. For PLATiNO 4, the company will supply - modelled on PRISMA, with the same performance but half the size and mass - a compact, lightweight, latest-generation hyperspectral camera. This will be used for the chemical-physical analysis of observed land surfaces and for gathering information to support natural and anthropogenic risk prevention activities.