ACHILE 2: GOGOA Enters Europe’s Next Generation of Defence, Protection and Human Capability Augmentation

The Basque biomedical engineering company joins a strategic European Defence Fund project to develop sensorised exosuits, physical assistance systems and technologies designed to reduce injuries, monitor fatigue and enhance soldier survivability in highly demanding operational environments.

Conceptual image of the ACHILE 2 project, featuring a soldier equipped with a sensorised exosuit for physical assistance, cervical protection, fatigue monitoring and injury prevention in advanced defence environments.

In modern defence, protection is no longer measured solely in armour, range or firepower.

It is also measured in something quieter, more human and increasingly decisive: the ability to keep the soldier physically, cognitively and physiologically capable of operating, enduring and surviving.

Today’s battlefield places the human body under exceptional strain: extreme loads, prolonged movement, thermal stress, accumulated fatigue, lumbar overload, cervical injury risk, loss of attention and critical decisions taken under intense physiological pressure. In this context, the human body is no longer merely the user of the system.

It becomes a critical platform.

And protecting it requires a new class of engineering.

That is the rationale behind ACHILE 2 — Augmented Capability for HIgh end soLdiErs 2, one of the projects selected under the European Defence Fund 2025 to develop next-generation systems for dismounted soldiers. According to the official European Commission factsheet, the project has an expected duration of 48 months, an estimated total cost of €40.97 million and a maximum EU contribution of €34.98 million.

And within that European consortium stands GOGOA.

Not as a company arriving in defence from the traditional military industry, but from a field that is becoming increasingly strategic: biomedical engineering applied to human movement, injury prevention, physical assistance, sensorisation and capability augmentation.

From ACHILE to ACHILE 2: Europe Accelerates the Soldier System of the Future

ACHILE 2 does not begin from nothing.

It builds upon a European development pathway that started with GOSSRA, under the Preparatory Action on Defence Research, and continued with ACHILE, a European Defence Fund 2021 project focused on the development of the Next Generation Dismounted Soldier System.

ACHILE 2 takes that ambition further.

The European Commission describes the new project as an initiative designed to transform the Next Generation Dismounted Soldier System into a fully modular, interoperable and open architecture, aligned with European end-user requirements and the lessons learned from recent conflicts. The project scales from individual soldiers to platoons and incorporates advanced technologies such as AI-enabled threat detection, augmented reality and wearable exosuits.

The essential word is architecture.

This is not about producing one isolated device. It is about building an integrated ecosystem: protection, mobility, communication, perception, assistance, sensorisation, energy, interoperability and decision-making.

In that ecosystem, the human body is no longer the limitation technology must merely tolerate.

It is the centre around which technology must be designed.

GOGOA: From Healthcare to Extreme Human Performance

GOGOA’s participation in ACHILE 2 is particularly significant for the Basque Country and for Europe’s defence technology landscape.

For years, GOGOA has developed technologies for rehabilitation, assistance and functional recovery: medical exoskeletons, movement-assistance systems, prevention devices, clinical technologies and solutions designed to restore human capabilities.

That expertise does not belong exclusively to the hospital.

It may also prove decisive in environments where the body is pushed to its very limits.

The move into defence does not mean leaving healthcare behind. Quite the opposite: it means taking health, prevention and biomechanics into a domain where every injury, every overload and every loss of physical capacity may have critical operational consequences.

The vision is clear: a better protected soldier is not simply a soldier carrying more equipment; it is a soldier who is better monitored, better assisted and less exposed to physical failure.

Soft Exosuits: Assistance Without Turning the Soldier into a Machine

One of GOGOA’s main areas of work within ACHILE 2 will be the development of soft exosuits: textile-based, flexible and sensorised systems designed to integrate naturally with the body, like advanced technical garments.

Unlike traditional rigid exoskeletons, soft exosuits seek to provide assistance without imposing heavy, noisy or restrictive structures that interfere with real movement.

Their purpose is to support key areas of the body — legs, lumbar region, arms and trunk — during tasks such as walking, running, lifting loads, maintaining demanding postures or moving with full operational equipment.

According to the project information shared with GOGOA, these systems will be based on textile fabrics, printed or embedded sensors, flexible actuators and variable-deformation elastomers capable of applying controlled tensile forces to assist movement and reduce physical load.

The difference is profound.

This is not about dressing the soldier in a robotic suit of armour.

It is about developing a technological second skin: able to assist without disturbing, protect without constraining and measure without intruding.

Sensorisation: Reading the Body Before It Fails

One of the great transformations in modern defence is that the soldier’s body is becoming a critical source of data.

Fatigue does not appear all at once.

Injury does not begin at the moment pain is felt.

Loss of performance is not always perceived before a mission is compromised.

Before that point, there are signals: changes in posture, biomechanical alterations, accumulated load, thermal stress, physiological variations, asymmetries, loss of stability and deterioration in movement patterns.

ACHILE 2 incorporates this logic by developing systems capable of integrating sensorisation and human-performance monitoring within the soldier system. The official project factsheet expressly refers to the inclusion of wearable exosuits within a next-generation modular architecture.

For GOGOA, this dimension is entirely natural.

In robotic neurorehabilitation, measurement is an essential part of treatment. Measuring forces, joint ranges, gait patterns, asymmetries and functional evolution allows clinicians to adjust therapy and make better decisions.

In defence, the same principle acquires a different relevance: measurement can help prevent injuries, anticipate fatigue, optimise load distribution, protect the user and sustain performance in extreme environments.

Biomechanics ceases to be only a clinical tool.

It becomes operational intelligence.

Cervical Protection: A Critical Zone Between Helmet, Load and Impact

Another relevant area of GOGOA’s participation is linked to neck protection and cervical stabilisation.

The neck is one of the most delicate areas of the body in military environments. A soldier may carry a helmet, optical systems, communications equipment, body armour, a backpack, weapons and other elements that alter load distribution. Added to this are impacts, vibrations, accelerations, falls and forces transmitted from the helmet towards the cervical spine.

According to the technical information shared with GOGOA, one project task includes the development of a helmet and neck support and stabilisation system, using advanced materials and solutions compatible with vests or exosuits. Within this framework, GOGOA will be responsible for the neck protection module.

This approach is especially important because survivability does not depend only on stopping an impact.

It also depends on how energy is transmitted through the body.

An effective protection system must consider the head, neck, torso, equipment and the interaction between all of them.

Here, biomedical experience is decisive.

It is not enough to design a resistant component. One must understand anatomy, mobility, ergonomics, fatigue, comfort, injury and prolonged use.

The Basque Country on Europe’s Advanced Defence Map

GOGOA’s entry into ACHILE 2 comes at a time when the Basque Country is gaining visibility within major European defence programmes.

El Correo has named GOGOA among the nine companies and technology centres helping to position the Basque Country as an emerging force in defence, highlighting its participation in ACHILE 2 alongside other Basque organisations involved in European projects covering autonomous systems, space, energy, materials, artificial intelligence, medical support and combatant protection.

The official ACHILE 2 factsheet also confirms the presence of GOGOA Mobility Robots SL within a European consortium coordinated by Safran Electronics & Defense and formed by entities from countries including France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Germany, Estonia, Denmark, Norway, Austria, the Netherlands and Cyprus.

This international dimension matters.

ACHILE 2 is not a local project. It is part of Europe’s broader strategy to strengthen its defence technological and industrial base through transnational cooperation, joint development and interoperability.

The presence of a Basque biomedical engineering company in this context sends a powerful message: the future of defence will not be built solely through electronics, aeronautics, weapons systems or software.

It will also be built through health, ergonomics, wearable robotics and a deep understanding of the human body.

The Future of Defence Will Also Be Preventive

For decades, military technology has focused on increasing external capabilities: seeing further, communicating better, resisting impacts, firing more accurately or moving faster.

The next frontier introduces a different question:

How do we protect the human operator who sustains the entire system?

ACHILE 2 answers that question through an integrated vision. Physical assistance can reduce fatigue. Sensorisation can anticipate risk. Cervical protection can reduce injury. Exosuits can improve mobility and load-bearing capacity. Open architecture can allow different systems to be integrated and evolve over time.

The result is not simply a soldier with more equipment.

It is a soldier who is better protected, more aware of their physical condition, more effectively connected to the wider system and less exposed to avoidable injuries.

That distinction matters for GOGOA.

The company does not enter defence from a logic of confrontation, but from a logic of human protection.

Its starting point is health.

Its experience comes from rehabilitation.

Its technology has been built around one question: how can we help the body move better, recover better and perform better?

In ACHILE 2, that question is taken into one of the most demanding environments imaginable.

GOGOA and the New Territory of Biomedical Engineering

Participation in ACHILE 2 reinforces GOGOA’s strategic evolution: from being recognised as a company specialised in medical exoskeletons to becoming a biomedical engineering firm capable of acting across multiple fields where the human body requires assistance, protection or capability augmentation.

Healthcare.

Industry.

Prevention.

Sport.

Defence.

Extreme performance.

The common thread is not the market.

It is the human body.

For that reason, ACHILE 2 should not be understood as a deviation from GOGOA’s path, but as a natural extension of it. GOGOA was born helping patients recover capabilities. Today, it applies that knowledge to environments where preserving capabilities may be just as important as restoring them.

A New Way to Protect

European defence is entering a phase in which technological superiority will increasingly depend on the integration of digital systems, platforms, sensors, artificial intelligence and human-centred technologies.

Within this new landscape, GOGOA occupies a singular position: it brings the perspective of a company that understands robotics through healthcare, assistance through biomechanics and innovation through its real impact on the body.

ACHILE 2 is not only about the soldier of the future.

It is about a deeper idea: that defence technology will be better when it is capable of protecting what no machine can replace.

Life.

Mobility.

Endurance.

The human capacity to continue.

And there, at the frontier between health, engineering and defence, GOGOA is beginning to claim a place of its own.

References

European Commission — European Defence Fund 2025. Official ACHILE 2 factsheet: Augmented Capability for HIgh end soLdiErs 2. The project is selected under the European Defence Fund 2025, with an expected duration of 48 months, an estimated total cost of €40.97 million and a maximum EU contribution of €34.98 million.

European Commission — Official ACHILE 2 description. The project aims to develop a modular, interoperable and open-architecture Next Generation Dismounted Soldier System, incorporating technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality and wearable exosuits.

European Commission — ACHILE 2 consortium. The official factsheet includes GOGOA Mobility Robots SL as a participating entity within the European consortium coordinated by Safran Electronics & Defense.

El Correo — “Las nueve empresas que convierten a Euskadi en una potencia en defensa”. Article published on 18 May 2026, mentioning GOGOA as one of the Basque companies participating in ACHILE 2, within the field of force protection and mobility.