Frontex – the European Border and Coast Guard Agency – has launched a competition around the Detection of Low Flying Objects (DeLFO).
Frontex invites the participants to carefully read all the documentation that is available on the Prize Award Contest website: https://frontex.europa.eu/about-frontex/prize-contest/
The main challenge for this Prize Award Contest on the Detection of Low Flying Objects is: Considering the existing technological solutions available in the market (or those currently under development) and their potential combination in a multi-layered, multi-sensor model, how can Low Flying Objects be effectively detected, tracked, and identified in a European land border, in a cost-efficient, scalable and integrated way?
The ultimate goal of this Prize Award Contest is to provide an opportunity for selected industry participants to deploy and test their proposed technological solutions in a testing environment, which will simulate a section of an EU land border. This real-world area will create unique conditions for comprehensive Testing and Evaluation, provided free of cost for participants. Applicants are encouraged to develop a participation strategy to this Prize Award Contest that ultimately aims at being selected for Phase 3 (Operational Trials) where they can demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solution to monitor a hypothetical surveillance volume. This volume is defined as 5 kilometres in length, 1 kilometre in depth and 1000ft in height (from ground level).
Deadline for submissions is February 15, 2023 and the total available prize budget is EUR 950 000. Frontex shall award financial rewards to participants that comply with the requirements and meet or surpass the criteria laid out in in this document. Frontex shall award the following prizes per phase:
- PHASE 1 A prize of EUR 10 000 up to the ten (10) best ranked proposals.
- PHASE 2 A prize of EUR 50 000 up to the five (5) best ranked presentations of technical capacity.
- PHASE 3 A grand prize of EUR 250 000 to the best ranked participant, EUR 200 000 to the second-best ranked participant and EUR 150 000 to the third-best ranked participant.
The exact specifications of the testing areas will be shared at a later stage. During all phases, participants shall be guided by the Challenge, to answer the following aspects:
- What are the capabilities of the proposed technological solution to detect, track and identify Low Flying Objects?
- How is the multi-layered approach designed (concept and architecture)?
- What is the deployment mobility (fixed, deployable/mobile, vehicular, portable, or any combination of these)?
- What are the logistical support requirements (off-the-grid, limited infrastructure, access to public utilities)?
- How does the solution expected to perform in degraded operating conditions (local operational conditions, terrain, wildlife bird activity, weather, and RF interference)?
- ▪ What is the level of integration (how are different systems integrated; high-level, low-level)?
- What is the technological maturity of the overall proposed solution?
- How is the proposed solution innovative?
For more information
https://frontex.europa.eu/about-frontex/prize-contest/
(Image:Frontex)
