Title: Control of a team of mini-UAVs to support counter-terrorism missions


Funding Institution:
NATO Emerging Security Challenges Division, Science for Peace and Security SPS Programme
Start date: 30.11.2017
Finish date:29.11.2019

Client / Partner / RTI
- Link Campus University, Italy (Coordinator)
- State Police Academy "Stefan Cel Mare", Republic of Moldova
- Kingston University– KU, UK
- Universitatea de Stat din Tiraspol – UST, Republic of Moldova
- International Institute of Management IMI-Nova, Republic of Moldova



Project Abstract:

The MIDAS project proposes an innovative approach to the detection & tracking of potential terrorist threats in urban areas. The concept is based on the use of teams of UAVs-Aerial Vehicles working together to provide (1) operational support in case of terrorist attacks in an urban environment (2) surveillance of critical infrastructure and/or areas of interest.
The main objective of MIDAS is to research and develop a command and control framework that enables the efficient coordination of teams of mini-UAVs capable of performing specific detection and tracking tasks in complex urban environments.
The UAVs will be equipped with different types of sensor payloads (cameras, IR sensors, acoustic sensors, etc.) and will be able to (1) acquire information from the operational scenario (2) share this information with the GCS-Ground Control Station through dedicated communication infrastructures (3) provide decision support to the MCO-Mission Control Operator operating at the tactical and strategic level.
In the GCS, heterogeneous information collected by the sensors will be collected and, through a real-time data fusion engine, this data will be appropriately combined to generate complex events that will be visualised on the HMI-Human Machine Interface console.
HMI is the interface through which the MCO can interact with the UAVs and is the module in which decision-making and operational processes reside: Operators and "decision makers" will use the HMI console in order to (1) dynamically modify the mission tasks and objectives based on the information gathered in the field by the UAVs team (2) optimise the decision-making process thanks to the "Augmented Situational Awareness" provided by the data fusion engine (3) better support the security operators deployed in the field with tactical-strategic information.
The MIDAS framework may be used in typical scenarios where the risk for the human operator is too high and the Mission Control Operator needs to use the system capabilities in order to collect additional information from the field and thus detect and monitor potential suspicious targets in the urban environment (men, vehicles, abandoned objects, etc.).



Planned activities:
- Administrative and technical project management, application of appropriate risk management methods (technical and programme), quality and confidentiality management of project outputs, management of IPR-Intellectual Property Rights.
- Analysis of End-Users requirements, translation of said requirements into functional system requirements, definition of reference operating scenarios, identification of the most suitable sensor payloads;
- Definition of a modular, scalable and low-cost system architecture to meet the End-User's requirements and operational requirements;
Research and development of specific data fusion and video analysis algorithms to process sensor data;
- Testing, Validation and Demonstration of the MIDAS concept in simulated but realistic environments in line with the identified operational reference scenarios;
- Management of dissemination activities of the project results through scientific publications, workshops, participation in conferences, training activities, etc.