Unmanned Air Transport of Injured Soldiers (UNATIS) – PESCO 6th Wave Project

UNATIS is a collaborative EU defence project under the sixth wave of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiatives. Its goal is to develop and qualify a dedicated Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) for the transport of injured personnel from the battlefield. By focusing on unmanned medical evacuation (“medevac”), UNATIS addresses a critical capability gap in high-intensity combat scenarios.

The project is driven jointly by Germany and the Netherlands, reflecting a pooling of resources and expertise to improve Europe’s autonomous casualty evacuation capacity. This partnership aligns with PESCO’s wider aim to strengthen the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base by coordinating investments and enhancing interoperability among member states. In essence, UNATIS seeks to field a reliable unmanned air ambulance system that can quickly evacuate wounded soldiers from areas too risky for manned helicopters, thus potentially saving lives even under contested or denied airspace conditions.

All planning and documentation for UNATIS are rooted in official 2023 EU defence publications and reflect the EU’s strategic emphasis on innovative military medical support within a cooperative European framework. Germany leads the industrial development of UNATIS through national defence companies, notably the private firm Avilus GmbH. Munich-based Avilus has engineered a 700 kg prototype “rescue drone” (codenamed Grille) intended to airlift severely wounded soldiers to medical care.

This unmanned aircraft – part of Avilus’s DRONEVAC system – was showcased in 2023–24 as a pioneering solution to modernize battlefield medical evacuation for the Bundeswehr. Avilus is not publicly listed; it is a small and specialized company, but it works in close partnership with larger industry players and the military. In late 2023, Avilus conducted joint trials of the Grille UAS in collaboration with KNDS (the Franco-German land systems consortium) and the Bundeswehr Medical Service, integrating the drone with a Milrem THeMIS unmanned ground vehicle to simulate robotic casualty extraction.