AI Will Help Protect European Borders

AI Will Help Protect European Borders
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Weather anomalies, illegal immigrants and terrorist activities are only a few causes of unusual ship behavior at sea. It will be monitored by the European Border and Coastal Guard Agency Frontex with an advanced IT system developed by Asseco. The Company has just signed an agreement for the preparation of a feasibility study of a tool to detect illegal and suspicious activities of maritime units.

This is the first such research and development project of Frontex. It is expected to complete the work on the demonstration version of the system in Q2 2018. At later stages, the system's development, tests and implementation will be conducted.

Frontex coordinates the cooperation between the member states for the management of the EU's land and maritime borders. The new system is intended to improve the work of operators who monitor maritime traffic on the basis of a number of different sources, such as the Copernicus system's satellite images, location information provided by the vessel geolocation system (AIS), and web portals, which provide information about the situation in the maritime sector. A sudden change of course taken by a ship does not always mean a suspicious action.

For example, it may be caused by dynamic weather conditions or technical failures. In addition, taking into account the intensity of maritime traffic, its monitoring is becoming an increasing challenge even for the most experienced operators. That is why Frontex has decided to start work on the concept of a system that will help the agency with maritime traffic monitoring. In this way, it will be possible to identify quickly whether the behavior of a given unit is correct or whether it is a reason for intervention.

"Asseco will develop the concept of a system that will help Frontex with protecting the security of the EU's maritime borders. We will use artificial intelligence mechanisms and deep learning techniques, among others. At the current stage, our experts and the scientists from the Academy of Naval Sciences will index the list of open sources, e. g. information portals, which will be a starting point for further work", said Zdzisław Wiater, Director of the Military Area of Asseco Poland.