Maritime security, including the underwater, is of paramount importance to assure the smooth and safe transportation of goods and people to/from the EU ports, as well as to preserve uninterrupted operations of critical coastal-based/river-based/maritime infrastructures. Ships and maritime infrastructures need to be protected against all illegal acts through a) continuous 24/7 underwater security surveillance against potential intruders divers, hostile underwater vehicles and illicit/dangerous containers towed by ships, b) on-demand ships’ hulls scanning/inspection for the best possible detection/recognition/classification of strapped, attached, hidden or misplaced illicit (i.e. narcotics) and dangerous material, c) underwater inspections of ports’ entrances, seabed and docking places foundation for the best possible detection/recognition/classification of dangerous containers (i.e. CBRNE packages and IEDs) at these places, as well as to apply deterrent and response measures, in order to prevent/deter illicit acts and avoid undesired escalation of security incidents. To that end, the multinational and interdisciplinary UnderSec project team, consisting of experts in the maritime security and underwater security domain, research/academic institutions and technology, and End-Users from the Coast Guard, Borders Control, and Port Authorities sectors, will develop a modular/holistic approach Prototype System, consisting of multimodal sensors and robotic assets, for ships’, ports’ and maritime infrastructures’ Underwater Security Situational Awareness and Decision-Making Support, with relevant Response capabilities. Individual technologies will be tested, compared with each other and pre-evaluated in a controlled environment, while the modular components and the system as a whole will be tested and evaluated during real-life PUCs demonstrations in actual operational environments, resulting in the establishment of new knowledge, innovative solutions and advanced processes.

ISOLA project combines state-of-the-art technologies blended with novel solutions to enhance the Situational Awareness and support the assigned Ship Security Officer & Crew to the execution of their duties especially to the Ship Security Plan. The suggested system is contextually aligned and harmonised with the existing regulations. Constraints to integration will also be looked at with attention given to key architecture framework criteria: standardisation, interoperability, openness, flexibility, adaptability, ability to evolve, scalability, modularity, simplicity, usability, robustness, information management, decision support and mission effectiveness, and legacy integration. ISOLA develops, integrates, tests, deploys, demonstrates and validates a systematic and fully automated security approach by incorporating innovative technologies for sensing, monitoring, data fusion, alarming and reporting real-time during illegal incidents. This will ensure high level of security among all the passengers of the ship and augmentation of the Ship Security Plan. The main objectives of ISOLA are: (i) to create strategies and methods in order to a ship to easily integrated solutions regarding passengers and crew safety in the existing ship systems; (ii) to propose innovative sensor and visual technologies to support security safety; (iii) to create a complex collaborative system for monitoring and detecting security incidents and events; (iv) to create early warning methods for the ship security crew to prevent security issues; (v) to collect incident evidences by exploiting the Augmented Reality; (vi) to allow easy engagement of different authorities in a ship related crisis; (vii) to model, classify and easily report a security event.