SEABILLA · Sea Border Surveillance

The SeaBILLA proposal aims to 1) define the architecture for cost-effective European Sea Border Surveillance systems, integrating space, land, sea and air assets, including legacy systems; 2) apply advanced technological solutions to increase performances of surveillance functions; 3) develop and demonstrate significant improvements in detection, tracking, identification and automated behaviour analysis of all vessels, including hard to detect vessels, in open waters as well as close to coast. SeaBILLA is based on requirements for Sea Border Surveillance defined by experienced operational users. These requirements have been transformed into Scenarios, included in Annex to this proposal, representative of gaps and opportunities for fruitful cooperative information exchange between Members States a) for fighting drug trafficking in the English Channel; b) for addressing illegal immigration in the South Mediterranean; c) for struggling illicit activities in open-sea in the Atlantic waters from Canary Islands to the Azores; in coherence with the EU Integrated Maritime Policy, EUROSUR and Integrated Border Management, and in compliance with Member States sovereign prerogatives. The project will provide concrete added value and benefits for users, by providing a solution that can be implemented at national and EU level to increase effectiveness, pool resources and address Maritime Security and Safety challenges; for world competitiveness of EU industries, by increasing knowledge and reducing risks for future product investments; for European citizens, by providing effectively deployable solutions for law enforcement along the European sea borders. SeaBILLA will be carried out by a reliable team of major European system integrators, technology providers and leading research organizations, establishing strong links with several EU and national projects and assuring worldwide exploitation of project results.