The workshop on “Remote Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) and Optionally Piloted Aircraft (OPA) potential for European border surveillance and search and rescue (SAR) operations” will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria on 18 and 19 April 2012.
The workshop is organized by Frontex, in cooperation with the Chief Directorate of Border Police of Bulgaria. Key stakeholders and representatives of the authorities of EU Member States involved in border control will attend.
The aim of the workshop is to present and debate the potential of RPAS and OPA for European border surveillance and SAR operations, touching topics like: technical and operational features, payloads, data-links, legislation, buying services or the product – a business case, cost-efficiency, comparisons with the classical aerial surveillance, best practices and lessons learned. The event will also give the end-users and industry the opportunity to meet each other and to exchange their views, experience and needs.
Frontex invites the relevant industry to present its latest achievements in this domain, especially from the perspective of cost-efficiency.
The invitation for Industry participation is posted on the Frontex web site
The RPAS Border Surveillance Workshop 2012 took place in Sofia, Bulgaria on 18 and 19 April 2012. This successful event was organised by Frontex in cooperation with the Chief Directorate Border Police of Bulgaria and featured 33 speakers. The workshop was attended by the EU Member States authorities involved in border control of Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain as well as by representatives of EASA, EUROCONTROL, JRC, Bulgarian Information Office for GMES (BIOG), Bulgarian Academy of Science – Centre for National Security and Defense Research (CNSDR) and Space Research and Technology Institute (SRTI), Frederick University – Cyprus, Tony Henley Consulting Ltd , United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and 25 Technology Providers.
In recent years the potential of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) technology for civilian and law enforcement use has been recognized in areas such as environmental monitoring (monitoring of fires, floods); wildlife monitoring (monitoring of endangered species such as whales); agriculture (surveying crops), as well as traffic control and border surveillance.
Up to now there is limited experience with the actual deployment of Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) in support of border surveillance. This technology is of particular interest of Frontex and EU Member states for improving the capacity to detect and track small and unseaworthy vessels, which are being used on a regular basis for irregular migration and cross-border crime (e.g. drug smuggling). The use of such vessels has multiplied the death toll of migrants drowning when trying to reach EU shores. For border surveillance operations RPAS technology might offer great potential by improving the aerial surveillance capacity resulting in more lives saved.
The workshop presentations highlighted the growing interest of the law enforcement community in these applications in EU MSs and showcased the ongoing regulatory activities in an EU level. The workshop also addressed topics like: the technical and operational features, payloads, data-links, to buy services or the product – a business case, cost-efficiency, comparisons with classical aerial surveillance, best practices and lessons learned.
The event also gave to the end-users and industry the opportunity to meet each other and to exchange their views, experience and needs.
However, to realise the RPAS potential and in order for end-users to consider the use of RPA, the critical issue of operating RPAS in normal airspace urgently needs to be resolved. Overall, RPAS still need to prove both their safety and their cost-effectiveness in order to be considered a relevant surveillance asset.