On 9 and 10 of June 2020, took place remotely (due to the Covid 19) the kick off meeting of the BorderUAS project.

The project will combine for the first time an airship (multi-role lighter-than-air unmanned aerial vehicle) with an ultra-high resolution multi-sensor surveillance payload supporting border surveillance as well as search & rescue applications, and specifically through-foliage detection. The remote sensing payload will include synthetic aperture radar (SAR), laser detection and ranging (LADAR), shortwave/longwave infrared (SWIR/LWIR) and acoustic cameras for direct target detection, as well as optical and hyperspectral cameras for indirect detection (from vegetation disturbance).

The project will use the ground-based infrastructure of border police units (command & control centres including satellite data feeds), where several new components will be demonstrated: novel ground based LADAR sensors (to complement aerial coverage), innovative data models (to identify illegal crossing patterns and preferred routes) and advanced audio/video analytics and storage (to provide additional detection capabilities).

The technology concepts will be validated in the field by 6 border police units (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus) covering 3 major illegal migration routes (Eastern Mediterranean, Western Balkan and Eastern Borders Routes), which represent 58% of all illegal border crossings detected and are also the most used for smuggling of drugs, weapons and stolen vehicles into Europe.