Thales-led consortium EISNET to boost European air defence

Under the European Defence Fund (EDF), Thales is to coordinate the EISNET (European Interactive Sensor-Based Dynamic Defence Network) consortium, involving 23 partners from industry, research centres and universities from twelve Member States.

EISNET was launched at the end of January 2025 in the presence of 65 high-level representatives from European industry, research centres and universities. The project will establish a set of common standards, as well as create prototypes and develop demonstration scenarios.

EISNET will define, develop and demonstrate next-generation real-time networks protocols – called the EISNET Architecture Framework Tool (EAFT) – that will allow European radars, passive sensors, and command & control systems from different suppliers and countries to communicate in real-time and exchange data and services between systems dynamically. EISNET’s smart dynamic management will enhance the performance, scalability, responsiveness and resilience of new and legacy IAMD systems for the most challenging air and missile threat scenarios.

By integrating these various capabilities in a coordinated manner and enhancing communication speed, the project aims to reduce the command chain latency in the face of new-generation threats, high velocity attacks, massive fire saturation, and the stealth of these threats. EISNET’s ambition is to move towards an open standard to enable full interoperability with all IAMD suppliers.

Raphaël Desi, Vice-President Integrated Airspace-protection Systems, Thales said: “Air superiority is decisive in today’s warfare in order to protect our countries and citizens. EISNET paves the way for a new generation of Integrated Air Missile Defence. Together, in this Thales-led consortium, we will boost European air defence.”

About EISNET
The EISNET Architecture Framework Tool (EAFT) that will consist in a set of common concepts, rules and functions which will permit the scalability of heterogeneous weapon systems, sensors and Fire Control Centres (FCC) with different architectures or configurations cooperating in a network centric solution.

The partners are: