AnyShape selected as industrial partner by Airbus for on Eurodrone program | VoxelMatters

Belgian metal additive manufacturing company AnyShape was selected as an industrial partner by Airbus Defence and Space for the Eurodrone program, a multi-year European defense initiative requiring sustained production volumes under aerospace-grade quality standards. Anyshape is not the only company using AM for the Eurodrone program. Materialise, one of the largest AM service providers in the world, also headquartered in Belgium, is producing the Environmental Control System (ECS) via its industrial AM service division.

Eurodrone is a four-nation remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) development program involving Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, led by the Organization for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR). Airbus Defense and Space (Germany) serves as the industrial prime contractor, with Leonardo (Italy) and Airbus Defense and Space (Spain) acting as major subcontractors. Germany holds the role of lead nation. The system is the first RPAS natively designed for integration into non-segregated civil airspace, certified against NATO STANAG 4671 Ed. 3, and built to operate without airspace restrictions alongside conventional aircraft.

The platform’s specifications place it above current market competition: a maximum mission payload of 2.3 metric tons combined with an endurance of up to 40 hours gives Eurodrone a payload-to-endurance ratio that no other RPAS currently matches. Its mission scope runs from intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) to attack, maritime patrol including anti-submarine warfare (ASW), airborne command and control (C³), and airborne early warning (AEW). A twin-engine configuration provides redundancy for mission completion under adverse conditions, and the system’s architecture is designed to avoid ITAR-controlled components, preserving full operational sovereignty for user nations.

Metal AM in aerospace and defense demands a level of process control—qualification, repeatability, traceability, and part reliability—that remains difficult to achieve at production scale. AnyShape’s selection points to its ability to meet those requirements on a long-term, contractually binding basis, rather than in a one-off prototyping or development context.

The Eurodrone engagement involves production of significant volumes over multiple years, a departure from the short-run or demonstrator work that has historically characterized AM’s role in defense programs.

AnyShape’s involvement in a program of this scale reflects a broader maturation in metal AM’s position within European aerospace supply chains, where OEMs are increasingly willing to commit to additive suppliers for serial production rather than treating the technology as a development tool. For Wallonia’s industrial base, selecting a regional AM company for a sovereign European defense program is a concrete validation of the sector’s production readiness.