Demonstration of applied solutions to enhance border and external security

Consortia are invited to propose demonstration of high (6-8) Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) systems applied in the context of border and external security. (TRL: please see General Annex G.)

Proposals should be submitted under only one of the following sub-topics:

• Sub-topic 1: [2018] Remotely piloted aircrafts and underwater autonomous platforms to be used from on-board offshore patrol vessels

Remotely piloted autonomous platforms of all kinds should demonstrate innovative capacities for land border and coast surveillance. Underwater autonomous platforms are also of interest for choke points surveillance (i.e. a port entrance.)

Research on artificial intelligence is likely to facilitate the transition from innovation to operation. Such platforms play an important role in facilitating long range and persistent surveillance in wide maritime areas, complementing operation from offshore patrol vessels. Improving the cost effectiveness, reliability and availability of such platforms, either by increasing the performance of existing technologies or by developing innovative concepts of operation, would notably contribute to better situational awareness at the tactical level beyond coastal waters (up to 200 nautical miles), while reducing risks during search and rescue missions, including launch and recovery phases, even in adverse sea and weather conditions. Proposals should aim at improved cost effectiveness, in particular through the remote operation of sensors mounted on aerial platforms (including optionally and remotely piloted) and by improving the on-board processing of payload data, while minimizing the data transmission to the ground segment.

• Sub-topic 2: [2019] New concepts for decision support and information systems

Information systems to support border and external security may combine a broad variety of data from very different sources, including personal data. Innovative solutions are needed to ensure the interoperability of surveillance systems, and the availability of information for maritime border surveillance coming from the area of operations in standardized formats, when and where it is needed, thus at enhancing situation awareness at strategic level (in National Coordination Centres), but also at tactical level (with assets deployed under the frame of surveillance operations). This would allow faster reaction to incidents in the maritime domain, and a reduction in the death toll at sea. Proposals should aim at optimize the exploitation of data for their specific use in surveillance is currently embryonic, and needs to take better account of the specific characteristics of the domain, with a view to provide the needed information reducing redundancies.

• Sub-topic 3: [2020] Improved systems for the vessel tracking, behaviour analysis and automatic anomaly detection

Current maritime reporting systems (including ship reporting systems and container reporting systems) produce huge quantities of data which cannot be directly exploited by the human operators in the various maritime control centres. This is expected to be even more so in the near future, as the amount of data available shall increase with the introduction of VHF Data Exchange System (VDES). At the same time, non-homogenous sources of vessel information are accessible, these offer access to either open or proprietary data that could be used to perform risk analysis on each individual vessel navigating in, or on its way to, European waters.

Traditional reporting systems are not enough by themselves to allow for a reliable detection of anomalies. Therefore, research under this topic should focus on innovative solutions bringing together these three elements: reporting and surveillance systems data (e.g. containing information on a vessel journey), relevant information databases (containing vessels’ and/or containers’ historical information) and real or near real time data resulting from other reporting or surveillance sources. The aim is to provide more precise, more robust and earlier anomaly detection. The combination of these sources of information should produce a risk scoring figure to be assigned to specific vessels which could, in turn, facilitate the discovery of possible illegal activities carried out by those vessels.

The solutions should be based on implementation agnostic, innovative algorithms for artificial intelligence and machine learning, applied to existing ship reporting systems and maritime databases and information sources. These algorithms should exploit, when appropriate and without precluding other methods, the capacity of Artificial Intelligence-enabled solutions. The solutions should automatically allocate risk level to vessels according to risk measured on the basis of anomalies detected on the reporting systems and on a vessel’s previous history. Solutions should also take into account special requirements found when working with very large amounts of data, coming from a wide range of heterogeneous sources.

The fitness for purpose of the proposed solutions should be systematically tested and validated (i.e. planned, implemented, reported and assessed) in a real operational environment at the EU external borders under the control of potential end-users, delivering quantifiable, verifiable and comparable measures of effectiveness and performance. Proposals should recommend concrete approaches for their market uptake, taking into consideration the characteristics of the EU security market, business cases favourable for joint cross-border procurement and possible synergies with EU funding instruments.

Where appropriate, the use of CISE data and services model is encouraged. The research undertaken in previous projects (I2C, TRITON, MARISA..) should not be duplicated.

• Sub-topic: [2018-2019-2020] Open

Proposals addressing other issues relevant to this challenge, based on a sound rationale and with the active involvement of a large number of relevant practitioners are invited to apply under this sub-topic (see eligibility and admissibility conditions.)

Proposals submitted under this topic should be coordinated by a competent authority under civilian authority and command, nationally identified as specialised border or coast guard, or border police force.

They should clearly demonstrate how they complement and do not overlap with actions undertaken in the Preparatory Action on Defence Research under topic PADR-US-01-2017: Technological demonstrator for enhanced situational awareness in a naval environment.[[https://ocean2020.eu/]]

Certain operational costs are excluded from eligible costs (see eligibility and admissibility conditions.)

Proposals should lead to solutions developed in compliance with European societal values, fundamental rights and applicable legislation, including in the area of free movement of persons, privacy and protection of personal data.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of about EUR 5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Solutions at high Technological Readiness Levels (TRL; please see General Annex G) to enhance border and external security do exist, but if they are not to remain unused they need to be demonstrated in the context of actual operations or exercises for validation by practitioners.

Medium term:

• Innovative solutions validated and qualified in the real, operational environment of civilian missions, defined in detail according to specifications set by the practitioners (authorities in charge of border surveillance and coast guard functions) and tailored to effectively meet their requirements within civilian missions.
• Plans for the quick take up of qualified systems at EU level.
• Plans for transnational procurement strategies.

Long term:

• Improved cost-effectiveness and efficiency of systems for the prevention of cross border crime and for border surveillance for civilian purposes.
• European standards for interoperable systems.
• Substantial and tangible improvement of (maritime) situational awareness and reaction capability, as appropriate in surveillance for civilian purposes, fight against crime, and search and rescue missions by the National and European Border and Coast Guards.
• Contribution to the concept of Common Application of Surveillance Tools, as for the European Border Surveillance System (EUROSUR) and to its interoperability with other systems.
• [2020] Implementation of actions of civilian nature identified in the EU Maritime Security Strategy Action Plan.[[https://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/policy/maritime-security_en]]