Indra has secured contracts worth more than 40 million euros to drive new air traffic transformation and automation projects in Europe, thus strengthening its position "as one of the main technological actors" in this process, according to the company in a statement released this Tuesday.
The contracts are part of new innovation initiatives of the program "SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) 3 Joint Undertaking", the European platform intended to develop key technologies to advance toward the European Digital Sky.
This new portfolio of projects builds on the experience accumulated by the multinational in phase 1 of SESAR 3, a stage in which it completed 21 innovation projects and transferred its results to solutions already integrated and operational in air traffic management systems.
Coordination of Artemisa and Neuron
On these foundations, Indra will be responsible for coordinating Artemisa and Neuron, two "strategic and complementary" initiatives that will drive the modernization of route control platforms and terminal areas, as well as integrating technologies aimed at increasing the efficiency, safety and sustainability of airport operations.
The director of innovation and iTEC air traffic collaboration at Indra, Oscar López Otero, has underlined that the culmination of 21 SESAR projects of phase 1 and the start of the new developments of phase 2 "consolidate Indra's role as one of the main drivers of the transformation of the European air traffic management system".
"These initiatives will allow us to continue accelerating the digitalization, automation and resilience of our solutions, taking innovation from the laboratory to real operation", he has indicated, stressing that this roadmap seeks to "develop solutions that respond to the needs of the sector and continue leading in the next generation of air traffic systems".
Alliance with the major air navigation providers
Indra has highlighted that, in Europe, it is "laying the foundations of the future air traffic management system" through applied innovation and in close collaboration with the main air navigation service providers: DFS (Germany), Enaire (Spain), NATS (United Kingdom), LVNL (Netherlands), PANSA (Poland), Avinor (Norway), Oro Navigacija (Lithuania) and NAV Canada (Canada). They all make up the iTEC Collaboration, of which Indra is a technology partner and in which they work together to develop "advanced, interoperable and standardized" solutions.
"The operational experience and shared vision of these partners, together with Indra's technological capacity, are key to orienting these developments toward the real needs of the sector," the company has explained, which has specified that the entry of the Canadian provider into iTEC "extends the scope of the alliance beyond Europe" and reinforces its ability to create technologies that respond to common needs on both sides of the Atlantic.
In this way, the alliance contributes to "Europe not only advancing in the modernization of its airspace, but also driving solutions for the air traffic management of the future with global reach". In this context, Artemisa, coordinated by Indra, will shape a new generation of platforms for en-route and terminal area air traffic management, with the goal of achieving higher levels of automation and interoperability.
The project will foster an "open, modular and service-oriented" architecture, which will facilitate the incorporation of new capabilities and the secure exchange of information between systems.
In addition, it will work to progress toward automation level 4 defined by EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency, by its acronym in English), in which systems will be able to make and execute decisions autonomously in routine operational situations, under human supervision and under previously established conditions.
These advances will drive the evolution of iTEC SkyNex, the next-generation platform of the iTEC Collaboration, and the deployment of an air traffic management model "more flexible, scalable and resilient".
For its part, Neuron, also led by Indra and underway since June 2026, will transform the management of airport operations through the optimization of aircraft taxiing, surveillance of surface movements, visual intelligence for digital towers and the joint planning of airport operations.