Advanced hoListic Adverse Drone Detection, Identification & Neutralization

Technologies for prevention, investigation, and mitigation
in the context of fight against crime and terrorism

PROJECT

The project ALADDIN – Advanced hoListic Adverse Drone Detection, Identification and Neutralization is funded by the European Commission (EC) through the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, in response to the call SEC-12-FCT-2016-2017 – Sub-topic 2: Detection and neutralization of rogue/suspicious light drone/UAV flying over restricted areas and involving as beneficiaries, where appropriate, the operators of infrastructure’.

Through a holistic approach and thanks to a Consortium of world-leading technical partners and end-user representatives of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and constructors/operators of critical infrastructures, ALADDIN’s ambition is to provide an unprecedented and evolving solution to the emerging drone threat, completely in line with the scopes of the call:

  1. New knowledge and targeted technologies for fighting both old and new forms of crime and terrorist behaviours supported by advanced technologies
  2. Test and demonstration of newly developed technology by LEAs involved in proposals
  3. Innovative curricula, training and (joint) exercises to be used to facilitate the EU-wide take-up of these new technologies

The drone threat

Recent reports confirm the soaring of UAV production worldwide, making it one of the three growth industries revolutionizing the world. This proliferation is however generating serious security issues. In recent years, newspapers and mass media have reported dozens of incidents involving drones flying over restricted areas and around critical infrastructures, such as airports, nuclear plants, official buildings, or during public events.

UAVs can represent both passive threats, unintentionally disrupting ordinary citizen lives, or active threats of criminal activities or terrorism, with high destabilization potential.

Unfortunately, facing such threats is not straightforward for various reasons. Firstly, the regulatory framework about the usage of UAVs and the legal responses to such threats is not clear and homogenous. Secondly, the operational capacity of law enforcement agencies is limited in human, equipment, and financial resources.

Today, there are no off-the-shelf Counter UAV (C-UAV) solutions effective enough in all operational contexts that can reliably detect, localize, identify and mitigate the threat of suspicious and potentially multiple UAVs, while taking into account the regulatory framework and the decision chain.

The ALADDIN challenge

ALADDIN has the challenging ambition to cover the gap between criminal and terrorist organizations, who are often at the forefront of technological innovation in planning, executing and concealing their criminal activities and Law Enforcement Agencies, who are often lagging behind when tackling criminal activities supported by advanced technologies.

ALADDIN will study, design, develop, and evaluate, in series of complementary pilots, a counter UAV system as a complete solution to the growing UAV threat problem, building upon a state-of-the-art system and enhancing it by researching on various detection and neutralization technologies and functionalities.

ALADDIN will also assess relevant technologies, threat trends, regulations, and other societal, ethical, and legal (SoEL) issues to improve the LEAs’ capability in facing this emerging threat.

ALADDIN in the EC’ Community Research & Development Information Service (CORDIS) website: http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/211556_en.html