Robots guarding Polish border

Tuesday, 01 September 2009 23:54

Warsaw, 2nd October 2008 - Industrial Research Institute for Automation and Measurements PIAP announced the launch of the innovative project TALOS. It is aimed at the safety enhancement of EU external land border, including one of its longest segments belonging to Poland. This aim shall be reached by the detailed development and implementation of a mobile, autonomous system, based on unmanned platforms (robots), which operate both on the ground and in the air. PIAP is the TALOS project coordinator. Other 13 participants are representatives of both public and commercial institutions from EU countries as well as Turkey and Israel, coming from the fields of industry, R&D and higher education.

TALOS budget reaches 20 mln Euros, including 13 mln Euros co-financed by European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme in Security Priority - Intelligent surveillance and border security.

The system to be developed will consist of three basic elements: Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UAV), used for border patrolling, sensor antennas mounted on mobile platforms, and the command and control centre, providing communication between all the elements on the site and the relevant Border Guard unit.

"Being chosen by the European Commission is a great success, which results both from PIAP's long-term experience in development of the automated systems for support of the uniformed forces, as well as from the unique competences and great potential of our partners" - says dr Jan Jabłkowski, PIAP's director. "TALOS is a word-scale pioneer programme, as none was ever using robots in such wide scope on the diversified terrain before. Considering the number of project partners it is also a significant organizational challenge"

All the elements of the new system will be mobile. That will enable their transport and installation in any place within only few hours. Modularity and flexibility of the system provides its fast adaptation to the specified task and local area conditions, like length of the border segment, lay of the land or forestation.

""The conventional border protection systems are based mainly on expensive ground facilities installed along the entire length of the border used only to observe, detect and warn. This infrastructure is complemented by motorized and foot patrols. The new mobile system will improve both the observation of the border and the communication, enabling Border Guards to react quicker to the threats" - dr Jabłkowski adds.

A very important part of the TALOS project is establishment of the End User Advisory Board (EUAB), consisting of Border Guard representatives from EU member and candidate states, responsible for particular segments of the EU land border (Estonia, Greece, Poland, Romania and Turkey). EUAB task will be advising and supervision of the design and development of the system.