Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ODYSSEUS (PREVENTING, COUNTERING, AND INVESTIGATING TERRORIST ATTACKS THROUGH PROGNOSTIC, DETECTION, AND FORENSIC MECHANISMS FOR EXPLOSIVE PRECURSORS)
Reporting period: 2021-10-01 to 2022-09-30
ODYSSEUS aims to increase the knowledge on explosive precursors and homemade explosives (HMEs), including precursors not previously studied, and develop effective and efficient prognostic, detection, and forensic tools to improve the capabilities of LEAs towards the prevention, countering, and investigation of terrorist incidents involving HMEs. ODYSSEUS will build upon relevant previous projects mainly HOMER, through the involvement of HOMER’s core partners in this consortium, and will thus continue the work already done in HOMER on some precursors and further extend it to not previously studied precursors. To discover potentially hitherto unknown information, online HMEs recipes will be collected and their content will be analysed so as to extract knowledge about (possibly unknown) precursors and HMEs. Selected precursors will be then characterisedand analysed for determining their explosive properties, feasibility, and potential for becoming a threat.
This knowledge will be leveraged for developing tools for
(i) chemical supply chain monitoring for irregularity detection to enable prediction and localisation of potential threats;
(ii) advanced sensors for detecting in (near) real time explosive precursors through air emissions and sewerage networks;
(iii) robotised tools for improved mobile detection and in-situ forensic support; and
(iv) automated threat detection, localisation, and assessment; these tools will be integrated into a configurable platform that will assist LEAs’ operations in diverse scenarios.
ODYSSEUS will be validated in lab and field tests and demonstrations in three operational use cases.
Extensive training of LEAs' personnel, hands-on experience, joint exercises, and training material will boost the uptake of ODYSSEUS tools and technologies. With a Consortium of 4 LEAs, 9 Research/Academic partners, and 5 industry partners, ODYSSEUS delivers a strong representation of the challenges, requirements and tools to meet its objectives.
This knowledge will be leveraged for developing tools for
(i) chemical supply chain monitoring for irregularity detection to enable prediction and localisation of potential threats;
(ii) advanced sensors for detecting in (near) real time explosive precursors through air emissions and sewerage networks;
(iii) robotised tools for improved mobile detection and in-situ forensic support; and
(iv) automated threat detection, localisation, and assessment; these tools will be integrated into a configurable platform that will assist LEAs’ operations in diverse scenarios.
ODYSSEUS will be validated in lab and field tests and demonstrations in three operational use cases.
Extensive training of LEAs' personnel, hands-on experience, joint exercises, and training material will boost the uptake of ODYSSEUS tools and technologies. With a Consortium of 4 LEAs, 9 Research/Academic partners, and 5 industry partners, ODYSSEUS delivers a strong representation of the challenges, requirements and tools to meet its objectives.
The project is on track and has achieved the two planned milestones, i.e. MS1 – Project setup and platform development roadmap (M06), and MS2 – Operational prototype (M12). The project started with the definition of the requirements specification framework combining all the technical assets to enhance or develop in the project, aligned with the use case definition and operational requirements.
The main achievements in the first reporting period can be summarized as follows:
- End-users requirements and scenarios definition: End user requirements have been established by relevant stakeholders. A conclusive list was developed including many user requirements which will be critical in the development of all components. Three initial, realistic, contemporary pilot use cases were developed.
- HMEs recipes collection from online sources - During the first year of the project, consortium have provided an initial version of our Web crawler for accessing and crawling data from the Surface, Deep and Dark Web for discovery and acquisition of online HMEs recipes. For the reporting period consortium has performed thorough research of state-of-the-art approaches towards multilingual text analysis and machine translation, with focus on the field of security and specifically on explosives. Additionally Multimodal data analytics for extracting intelligence were studied and three distinct methods were developed: Classification; Clustering; and Social network analysis.
- Improving knowledge on explosives precursors – During first year of the project a review of information from a number of sources including online, relevant works of literature, police reports and related projects was undertaken. A list of pyrotechnics was compiled.
– Suspicious transactions in the supply chain – Project consortium for the first yea established an initial list of fields that are required for the output of the economic operator ecosystems transaction simulators. Based on that list, a first prototype of the simulator was developed and tested on dummy data. In addition consortium conducted a thorough literature analysis aiming at identifying the most appropriate data processing and artificial intelligence methods to be exploited in the development of the Suspicious Transaction Detection module (STD).
- Enhanced Sensing for Explosive Precursors detection in Air and Water - During RP1, most technical activities were focused on the design and adaptations required for all technologies to operate in the planned environments and detect the target analyses.
- Development and integration of the ODYSSEUS platform - During the reporting period, this work initiated its activities towards the design of the ODYSSEUS platform architecture. In this context, initial information was collected by the technical partners which led to the initial component list of the ODYSSEUS platform. In addition, several discussions took place, mainly with the technical partners of the consortium, to shape a high-level view of the platform and its operation, to clarify and initiate the definition of the integration aspects, and to investigate options for the ODYSSEUS data model that will be adopted.
Dissemination & Communication: ODYSSEUS has already been presented at:
• CERIS FCT workshop on explosives (19 Oct 2021, online)
• Projects to Policy Seminar (30 Jun – 01 Jul 2022, Brussels, Belgium)
• Research and Innovation Symposium for European Security and Defence (RISE-SD) 2022 (31 May - 2 June 2022, Plovdiv, Bulgaria)
• XI International Scientific Conference HEMUS 2022, Research, technology and innovation - basis for building new defence capabilities (June 2 and 3, 2022, International Fair Plovdiv, Bulgaria)
and dissemination material in the form of website, posters, flyers, videos produced and distributed. Ethical principles and legal requirements were established to guide both the project research and its technological development activities. In summary, ODYSSEUS Project has achieved innovation and promising new concepts that are detailed in the relevant evaluation reports.
The main achievements in the first reporting period can be summarized as follows:
- End-users requirements and scenarios definition: End user requirements have been established by relevant stakeholders. A conclusive list was developed including many user requirements which will be critical in the development of all components. Three initial, realistic, contemporary pilot use cases were developed.
- HMEs recipes collection from online sources - During the first year of the project, consortium have provided an initial version of our Web crawler for accessing and crawling data from the Surface, Deep and Dark Web for discovery and acquisition of online HMEs recipes. For the reporting period consortium has performed thorough research of state-of-the-art approaches towards multilingual text analysis and machine translation, with focus on the field of security and specifically on explosives. Additionally Multimodal data analytics for extracting intelligence were studied and three distinct methods were developed: Classification; Clustering; and Social network analysis.
- Improving knowledge on explosives precursors – During first year of the project a review of information from a number of sources including online, relevant works of literature, police reports and related projects was undertaken. A list of pyrotechnics was compiled.
– Suspicious transactions in the supply chain – Project consortium for the first yea established an initial list of fields that are required for the output of the economic operator ecosystems transaction simulators. Based on that list, a first prototype of the simulator was developed and tested on dummy data. In addition consortium conducted a thorough literature analysis aiming at identifying the most appropriate data processing and artificial intelligence methods to be exploited in the development of the Suspicious Transaction Detection module (STD).
- Enhanced Sensing for Explosive Precursors detection in Air and Water - During RP1, most technical activities were focused on the design and adaptations required for all technologies to operate in the planned environments and detect the target analyses.
- Development and integration of the ODYSSEUS platform - During the reporting period, this work initiated its activities towards the design of the ODYSSEUS platform architecture. In this context, initial information was collected by the technical partners which led to the initial component list of the ODYSSEUS platform. In addition, several discussions took place, mainly with the technical partners of the consortium, to shape a high-level view of the platform and its operation, to clarify and initiate the definition of the integration aspects, and to investigate options for the ODYSSEUS data model that will be adopted.
Dissemination & Communication: ODYSSEUS has already been presented at:
• CERIS FCT workshop on explosives (19 Oct 2021, online)
• Projects to Policy Seminar (30 Jun – 01 Jul 2022, Brussels, Belgium)
• Research and Innovation Symposium for European Security and Defence (RISE-SD) 2022 (31 May - 2 June 2022, Plovdiv, Bulgaria)
• XI International Scientific Conference HEMUS 2022, Research, technology and innovation - basis for building new defence capabilities (June 2 and 3, 2022, International Fair Plovdiv, Bulgaria)
and dissemination material in the form of website, posters, flyers, videos produced and distributed. Ethical principles and legal requirements were established to guide both the project research and its technological development activities. In summary, ODYSSEUS Project has achieved innovation and promising new concepts that are detailed in the relevant evaluation reports.
The main result of ODYSSEUS Project to increase the knowledge on a continuously revised list of explosives and explosive precursors, including precursors not previously studied, and also develop effective and efficient prognostic, detection, and forensic tools and solutions to improve the capabilities of LEAs and Competent Authorities towards the prevention, countering, and investigation of terrorist incidents involving HMEs.
The developed tools and solutions will include:
(i) online HMEs recipes collection, analysis, and characterisation;
(ii) chemical supply chain monitoring for irregularity detection;
(iii) advanced sensors for detecting in (near) real-time explosive precursors in gas phase and also in water;
(iv) robotised tools for improved mobile detection and in-situ forensic support; and
(v) automated threat detection, localisation, and assessment; these tools will also be integrated into a configurable platform that will assist LEAs’ operations in diverse terrorism-related scenarios.
Therefore, ODYSSEUS will achieve innovation in multiple dimensions and examine in a novel manner the interplay among several factors affecting the intelligence, detection, and forensic aspects associated with explosive precursors, including aspects not previously considered (such as the chemical supply chains).
The developed tools and solutions will include:
(i) online HMEs recipes collection, analysis, and characterisation;
(ii) chemical supply chain monitoring for irregularity detection;
(iii) advanced sensors for detecting in (near) real-time explosive precursors in gas phase and also in water;
(iv) robotised tools for improved mobile detection and in-situ forensic support; and
(v) automated threat detection, localisation, and assessment; these tools will also be integrated into a configurable platform that will assist LEAs’ operations in diverse terrorism-related scenarios.
Therefore, ODYSSEUS will achieve innovation in multiple dimensions and examine in a novel manner the interplay among several factors affecting the intelligence, detection, and forensic aspects associated with explosive precursors, including aspects not previously considered (such as the chemical supply chains).