Τhe core challenges along with the provided REACTION solutions can be summarized as follows:

 

• Challenge 1: The wideness of the surveyed area prohibits effective monitoring and requires multiple human resources to cover such responsibilities.

Solution: REACTION project will rely on the use of robotic technologies for surveillance tasks in remote areas to decrease the involvement of a human patrol unit (either in land or maritime cases). Hence, vast territories could be effectively monitored to absolve human resources for other essential tasks.

 

• Challenge 2: Similar RPAS technologies are deployed by many border agencies nonetheless, limited application is commonly observed for specific unmanned vehicles

Solution: Towards delivering an interoperable platform and supporting a wide variety of RPAS systems, the REACTION consortium will define, design and develop an efficient data exchange model that will rely on similar models such as STANAG 4671.

 

• Challenge 3: Complex operational environments require the dedication of either human patrol units or experienced and well-trained personnel for commanding the deployed RPAS systems.

Solution: Incorporating innovative models for optimal mission definition as well as synergetic capacities for RPAS commanding will decrease the requirement of utilizing further personnel to accomplish the daily objectives. Hence, the addition of (semi-) autonomous navigation of multiple unmanned vehicles could be essentially beneficial to simplify the system’s usage.

 

• Challenge 4: Due to the heterogeneity of the incidents and the complexity of the operational environments, the overall levels of situational awareness of the border personnel are habitually low.

Solution: Within the scope of REACTION project, multiple services of detection, identification and decision support for events/activities relevant to border will be integrated into the final system as components of an operational C2. Targeting to improve the overall situation awareness of an operator, essential information will be extracted at different levels to complement and enrich the defined knowledge in the scope of an early identification mechanism of events.

 

• Challenge 5: Innovative technologies such as RPAS systems are not compatible with existing infrastructure leading to obsolete usage as no information could be exchanged with legacy systems.

Solution: REACTION framework will consider existing data models that have already been defined and exploited for usage in legacy systems to attain interoperable connectivity and comprehensive data exchange. Model CISE (Common Information Sharing Environment) that was utilized and expanded in ROBORDER (GA: 740593) will be complemented with additional structures to support the connection between the two systems (REACTION and RICs and/or Border agencies’ Command and Control Units). Hence, event identification models will forward via the C2 the information that describes an illegal and/or hazardous event with a compatible structure to early and properly inform the relevant agency.