The campaign is scheduled to start on 28 September, bringing military users and developers together. A €1.8 million prize competition forms part of the programme, but procurement and deployment remain separate steps.
Europe’s EU OPEX defence experimentation campaign is scheduled to start in Portugal on 28 September 2026. The European Defence Agency (EDA) says more than 200 military specialists, developers and end users will gather at the Santa Margarida Military Training Area.
Over 40 companies and innovation organisations are due to participate. The agency and Portuguese Army are organising the campaign within Portugal’s ARTEX 26 exercise, bringing together unmanned aircraft, ground systems and communications technologies. EDA announced the programme on 25 September. This report covers the scheduled opening; the reviewed sources do not yet establish completed trials or their results.
The programme starts with individual tests before progressing to more complex exercises involving different systems. Planned activities include reconnaissance and cooperation between aerial and ground robots on resupply tasks, according to the programme described by Defence Industry Europe on 27 September.
Combined field experiments are scheduled for 7–8 October, with a demonstration event for officials and defence stakeholders on 14 October. These are programme dates, rather than evidence that a particular system has met a performance requirement.
Sentinel Strike, the loitering-munition contest within the campaign, has up to €1.8 million available for its second-stage prizes. EDA lists Helsing Germany, Destinus, C-Astral, UAVision and Spirit Aeronautical Systems as the five companies invited forward following first-stage results announced on 17 July. Their selection is background to today’s scheduled trials, not a new shortlist.
The agency explicitly describes the challenge as a prize contest, rather than a procurement or grant procedure. Its published rules require a safety and acceptance gate before operational trials, with formal scoring dependent on acceptance and host-country authorisation. The public page reviewed for this article does not confirm which systems have passed that gate.
The contest’s indicative timetable places notification of second-stage winners and the awards ceremony in January–February 2027. Taking part this autumn therefore does not establish a winning product or a military purchase.
DWN analysis: the useful question is whether a system remains dependable when it must work with other equipment and military users. EDA identifies comparable evidence on reliability, safety and operational suitability as goals of the contest. Those goals help explain the campaign’s value, but should not be mistaken for findings.
For readers following European drone procurement, the next meaningful milestones are documented trial outcomes, award decisions and any subsequent contracts. The reviewed programme material provides no comparative results or equipment orders arising from these trials. Until those emerge, the story is about an organised evaluation process—not a demonstrated leap in battlefield capability.
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DWN interpretation is identified in the text. This is not original field reporting or independent technical validation. Historical background retains its original dates; a later expansion date does not turn an old announcement into new news.