Advanced Sensors, Radars, Seekers, Electronic Warfare and Optronics: Strategic Priority Analysis
Europe’s long-term capacity to defend its territory and allies increasingly depends on a single technological family: advanced sensors, precision seekers, high-performance radar systems and electronic warfare capabilities. These components form the core of every modern defence architecture—from integrated air and missile defence and guided munitions to autonomous platforms, counter-UAS systems and multidomain ISR chains. Without sovereign access to cutting-edge optronics, IR and RF seekers, GaN-based radar modules, jammers and sensor fusion platforms, Europe’s strategic posture risks being reduced to industrial assembly without cognitive capacity. This sensor-centric bottleneck is not only technological, but systemic: it constrains procurement, undermines industrial ramp-up, slows innovation and threatens deterrence credibility across the Eastern Flank. Both NATO and the EU have explicitly recognised these domains—advanced sensing, optronics, RF spectrum operations and electronic warfare—as critical enablers for future deterrence. Yet production remains fragmented, supply chains are dependent on non-allied providers, and few facilities exist with the capacity to scale. This report addresses that gap by tracing the structural, operational and industrial roots of the problem, mapping its implications, and identifying the research, industrial and investment pathways required to restore strategic autonomy in sensor-driven defence systems.
The report is structured as a comprehensive end-to-end analysis aligned with the standard DFM Strategic Priority framework. It begins by reconstructing the political-strategic rationale behind the prioritisation of advanced sensing and electronic warfare within NATO, EU and national doctrines, linking the threat landscape to institutional commitments and regional operational planning. The second section explores the operational layer, detailing how this priority is embedded in multidomain force structures, mission sets and capability design. The third part translates these operational needs into concrete tactical and technological requirements, specifying performance parameters and mapping them onto EDT categories and TRLs. The fourth section examines the regulatory, legal and administrative instruments through which this priority is implemented—procurement, certification, industrial policy—and how these shape market and innovation dynamics. The fifth part identifies the critical bottlenecks across value chains, from semiconductor supply to system integration, and quantifies their strategic consequences. The final section links the entire analytical chain to the four DFM actor categories—institutions, enterprises, research, capital—clarifying how each intersects with this priority and what roles they must play to close the sensor gap. The report concludes with structured metadata and taxonomy-ready fields for database integration.
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