Development of a Novel Automated Monitoring System for Sea Border Security using Thermal Imaging and Sonar Technologies (SEABORDER)

Project Overview

The illegal immigration and the transport of weapons, drugs, and goods into the European Union pose serious security and humanitarian problems. These problems are particularly acute in southern member states like Cyprus. SEABORDER concentrated in the development of a coast wireless sensor network of cost efficient buoys for continuous monitoring, intruder detection and localization. In particular, the project focused on the design and development of a low cost autonomous smart buoy which can be deployed in numbers covering a wide area across a sea border. The proposed technology included low-power hardware, hydrophone signal processing, data acquisition and logging hardware, innovative signal processing algorithms and data fusion techniques for intruder detection and localization using sonar and infrared data. The project demonstrated the developed technology through a prototype of the sensor network in southern eastern Mediterranean.

Partners Involved

• University of Nicosia (Cyprus)
• SignalGeneriX Ltd (Cyprus)
• CNE Technology Center (Cyprus)
• Cyprus Police (Cyprus)

This project is co-funded by the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation under the Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Innovation 2009-2010.