The PROMENADE project focuses on the improvement of maritime awareness by means of AI and BD methods. PROMENADE has got 5 main objectives that aims to increase the maturity of previous and on-going research activities:

• Develop new technologies that will provide to the Border Guard Authorities an open service-based Toolkit by implementing innovative algorithms for AI and ML applied to maritime surveillance reporting systems.
• Build up on previous H2020 projects, taking the advantage of their results and enhancing them.
• Facilitate a fruitful collaboration among Cross-border agencies in the maritime surveillance.
• Shorten the adoption time to innovative technologies by the Border Guards Authorities.
• Ensure compliance of all the project activities with legal and ethical regulations and norms.

The project development is based on the creation of an open service-based Toolkit by implementing innovative algorithms for AI and ML applied to maritime surveillance reporting systems, databases, and other information sources according to the BD perspective.

PROMENADE project is coordinated by the Greek Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy with 16 participants from 7 countries in the consortium, end users included.

The area stretching between Spain and Morocco, known as the Western Mediterranean route, has long been used by migrants. For many years, it has also been the main route used by criminal networks to smuggle narcotics into the EU. This is one of the areas with more maritime traffic in the world.

Main objectives of the trial:

1. Place a beacon on one or more vessels involved on the trial.
2. Correlate the data and information obtained with other available data sources.
3. Detect suspicious behaviour on vessels.

Possible illicit activities detected:

• Drug trafficking
• Patera-taxi for illegal smuggling of people.

The trial took place in Adra, not far from Almeria (Spain), on the 7–8–9 of February.

In the first day, Guardia Civil (GUCI) representatives were trained and GMV and GUCI representatives managed the technical verifications to execute the trial; during the second and the third days the execution of the trial was performed by GUCI in Almeria while GMV and GUCI representatives supervised and coordinated the physical execution from the GUCI HQ in Madrid.

The operational scenarios were run with the involvement of real vessels, actors on the field, data acquired from different sensors in real-time, alerts generated, and reports filled out by the operators under the coordination of GUCI and GMV.

Examples of the use cases scenarios performed during the trial:

• Detection of Fast Boat. A beaconized vessel sailing with unusual high speed towards the coast.
• Detection of Patera Taxi activity.
• Detection of contact and splitting. Two vessels equipped with AIS and beacons establish contact and sail together for a period of time. Eventually, they part ways as one of the vessel heads towards the coast.
• Detection of Drop-Off operations. A high-speed vessel and a cargo vessel that are sailing to the same area temporarily disable their AIS systems before reactivating them after a few minutes. As a result, their estimated routes intersect with one another.

The involved partners in the Iberian Trial:

• Università Cattolica – Transcrime (UCSC)
• SatCen
• ISDEFE
• NATO STO CMRE
• CMRE
• Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy
• French Navy
• KEMEA
• MarineTraffic
• GMV
• Leonardo Company S.p.A.
• State Border Guard Service at the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Lithuania
• Inovaworks
• Guardia Civil (GUCI)

External stakeholders attending the Iberian Trial:

• Frontex