Unmanned vehicles (UVs) now play an increasing role in Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) missions such as border surveillance, cropping monitoring or local law enforcement. However, fast location of isolated people in the case of natural or man-made disasters still continues to be a crucial and arduous task. MOBNET will design a Search and Rescue (SAR) system for the location of isolated victims in the case of natural or man-made disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes or large snow storms. It will also help first responder services to find fugitives or smugglers hidden within buildings. To that end, the use of European Global Navigation Satellite (EGNSS) systems (both Galileo early services and EGNOS) and Digital Cellular Technologies (DCT) will play the key role in these situations in which it is difficult, dangerous or even impossible to access the affected areas. The EGNSS and DCT technologies will be tightly synchronised to provide accurate positioning. However, this demanding synchronisation exceeds the current capabilities of most GNSS and cellular equipment. In order to achieve the required performance, novel EGNSS and DCT methods will be applied. Furthermore, an effective and reliable communication link between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and the ground station will be designed. This datalink will ensure uninterrupted command and control communication among devices and the integrity of communication signals. Thus, the UAVs will always operate as intended. Research will be driven by the end-user and industrial partners to ensure that it addresses the needs of the PPDR services. The potential for a fast and reliable SAR system will be illustrated by a prototype that will work at long distances. The developed SAR system will take advantage of the Galileo and EGNOS capabilities and will strengthen the position of European Industry in the field of security services. It will greatly facilitate their missions and the rescue of isolated victims

Operation & Maintenance (O&M) costs are the main cost driver in offshore energy due to the difficult accessibility to the WTs, but also due to the environmental conditions. O&M costs can account for up to 30% of the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) and sensing & monitoring systems could help attain the expected fall to 70 EUR/MWh by 2030. The highest criticality (in €/kWh) in offshore wind is caused by structural failure, that mainly occurs due to corrosion processes non-adequately neither predicted nor monitored. For that reason, it is crucial to implement new monitoring, diagnosis, prognosis and control tools into the offshore wind farms (WFs) to enable Wind Farm Operators (WFOs) to take predictive smart O&M decisions fully considering structural components real and future status. WATEREYE aims to develop an integral solution that will allow to WFOs a 4% reduction of OPEX, accurately predicting the need for future maintenance strategy and increasing the offshore wind annual energy production. To this end, WATEREYE will: 1/ develop a monitoring system capable of remotely estimating the corrosion level in exact WT locations (tower, splash-zone, tower-platform junction) as a supporting tool for predictive maintenance to considerably reduce the O&M costs and reduce the risk for operation failures; New Ultrasound corrosion sensors (ad-hoc, low-cost, high accuracy, fast-response, non-invasive) will be developed, as well as high efficient and robust wireless communications specifically conceived for offshore WTs hard communicating environment. Besides, a novel drone-based mobile platform to move one mobile sensor inside the WT tower will be developed. 2/ develop enhanced prediction models by analysing the acquired data in novel ways (semantic models); 3/ develop WT & WF control algorithms with accurate consideration of the structural health, giving operators freedom to choose the best balance between energy production, protective control, and predictive maintenance.

Project SECOPS (an integrated SECurity concept for drone OPerationS) is initiated by a research centre (NLR) and 3 SME industrial partners (SensoFusion, Unifly and Delft Dynamics), in response to the SESAR2020 Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) Exploratory Research Call, under Topic 06 “Security & cyber-resilience”. SECOPS' objective is to push drone technology forward by ensuring that security risks in the Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) concept are mitigated to an acceptable level. An integrated security concept at TRL2 will be developed addressing resistance of drones against unlawful interference, protection of third parties and integration of geo-fencing technology; focussing on technological options (navigation, surveillance, in-flight updates, etc.) for both airborne and ground elements, considering legal, regulatory and social aspects. SECOPS will include a proof of concept of the integrated security concept, integrating COTS technology of the consortium partners. A preliminary demonstrator, based on a realistic scenario, will be performed at the Netherlands RPAS Test Centre (NRTC). The comprehensive experience of the SECOPS partners working on drone security and geo-fencing in various R&T projects and initiatives, joint national and European collaboration on multiple aerospace programs of OEMs motivate their common application. NLR has a strong track record in drone research, testing, applications and training. The industrial partners are keys to the project’s success: SensoFusion in the development and commercialisation of the AIRFENCE drone detection and prevention system, Unifly in the development of a UTM system and Delft Dynamics in developing and building robot helicopter systems to provide innovative security solutions for drone and third parties, but also in the development of the counter drone system DroneCatcher. SECOPS total grant request to EC is 909 293€ for the whole consortium and the project will be conducted within 24 months.