A New Integrated Border Security Approach: The FP7 PERSEUS Project

Abstract

PERSEUS (Protection of European Borders and Seas Through the Intelligent Use of Surveillance) was selected as a demonstration project in the FP7 Security call FP7-SEC-2010-1. Its goals were to define and demonstrate a European concept for maritime surveillance systems and to deploy it across the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean. The systems were set to operate in a real-life environment by exercising a comprehensive set of maritime surveillance cross-border scenarios between 2013 and 2015. During its 4.5 years, it involved 32 partners from 12 countries with a budget of 42M€. PERSEUS is set in the EUROSUR policy context. EUROSUR is the information exchange framework designed to improve the management of Europe's external borders. It aims to support member states by increasing their situational awareness and reaction capability in combating cross-border crime, tackling irregular migration, and preventing loss of migrant lives at sea. However, it also is in the reality of the existing national and regional systems operated by each member state to monitor its own maritime space. The PERSEUS project delivered successful results in three different domains. Some of them are a validated solution enabling shared surveillance of maritime borders (operational); an architecture, domain, target vision, and processes contributing to EUROSUR (integration); and recommendations and lessons learned toward evolving collaborative maritime surveillance policies (best practices). The line followed by PERSEUS using autonomous maritime surveillance systems such as the Wave Glider (http://www.liquidr.com) opens new research lines for future collaboration opportunities.