Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ODYSSEUS (Unobtrusive Technologies for Secure and Seamless Border Crossing for Travel Facilitation)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2025-01-01 al 2025-12-31
The project “Unobtrusive Technologies for Secure and Seamless Border Crossing for Travel Facilitation” - ODYSSEUS was funded by the European Commission under Horizon programme, starting January 2023 and ending in December 2025. ODYSSEUS had the important goal to improve the process of EU border crossing for both citizens and Border Authorities, while maintaining privacy and security.
The approach of ODYSSEUS was to collect identity and other travel relevant data of people before the travel. Upon arrival at a border crossing point, the next two phases are the identity verification process of the travelers and the screening of vehicles, luggage and cargos. The results are fused in order to make the final decision about the passenger/vehicles passing the border without stopping or triggering a deeper inspection process.
The identity verification process is performed through Virtual Passport technology enabling citizens to securely manage their identity information through their smartphone in a Mobile Wallet, read by a Seamless onboarding device supported by the User Continuous Behavioral Authentication that ensures the identity checking. At arrival at a border crossing point on road, train or ship, the vehicle and the luggage or cargo are processed through Unobtrusive X-Ray scanning technology, UAV-assisted image processing, Faceless Person Counting and AI based data analytics.
At the end of its third year of implementation, the ODYSSEUS project successfully completed the main phases of development, integration and validation. The focus during this final year was on consolidating the integrated platform, validating the technological components in operational environments and finalizing the performance assessment of the overall framework.
During Year 3, the ODYSSEUS platform reached its final integrated version.
The project also finalised its pilot demonstrations across land, sea and rail border scenarios. These pilots enabled testing under realistic operational conditions and provided measurable feedback on system performance. The validation process included the assessment of technical and business KPIs, user acceptance evaluation and justification of the achieved Technology Readiness Levels. The results confirmed that the ODYSSEUS platform and its individual tools reached advanced levels of maturity and are technically ready for further exploitation and potential operational deployment.
All technological developments were aligned with the General Data Protection Regulation, AI Act and applicable legal frameworks.
In parallel with validation activities, the consortium further developed exploitation planning and sustainability strategies. Business models and market positioning approaches were refined to support continuation beyond the project’s lifetime and to prepare selected technologies for potential real-world uptake.
The project concluded its implementation phase with a final event where the main results and lessons learned were presented to stakeholders. With the completion of its third year of implementation, ODYSSEUS closes its operational phase with validated technologies, documented performance results and a structured pathway toward future development and exploitation.
The approach of ODYSSEUS was to collect identity and other travel relevant data of people before the travel. Upon arrival at a border crossing point, the next two phases are the identity verification process of the travelers and the screening of vehicles, luggage and cargos. The results are fused in order to make the final decision about the passenger/vehicles passing the border without stopping or triggering a deeper inspection process.
The identity verification process is performed through Virtual Passport technology enabling citizens to securely manage their identity information through their smartphone in a Mobile Wallet, read by a Seamless onboarding device supported by the User Continuous Behavioral Authentication that ensures the identity checking. At arrival at a border crossing point on road, train or ship, the vehicle and the luggage or cargo are processed through Unobtrusive X-Ray scanning technology, UAV-assisted image processing, Faceless Person Counting and AI based data analytics.
At the end of its third year of implementation, the ODYSSEUS project successfully completed the main phases of development, integration and validation. The focus during this final year was on consolidating the integrated platform, validating the technological components in operational environments and finalizing the performance assessment of the overall framework.
During Year 3, the ODYSSEUS platform reached its final integrated version.
The project also finalised its pilot demonstrations across land, sea and rail border scenarios. These pilots enabled testing under realistic operational conditions and provided measurable feedback on system performance. The validation process included the assessment of technical and business KPIs, user acceptance evaluation and justification of the achieved Technology Readiness Levels. The results confirmed that the ODYSSEUS platform and its individual tools reached advanced levels of maturity and are technically ready for further exploitation and potential operational deployment.
All technological developments were aligned with the General Data Protection Regulation, AI Act and applicable legal frameworks.
In parallel with validation activities, the consortium further developed exploitation planning and sustainability strategies. Business models and market positioning approaches were refined to support continuation beyond the project’s lifetime and to prepare selected technologies for potential real-world uptake.
The project concluded its implementation phase with a final event where the main results and lessons learned were presented to stakeholders. With the completion of its third year of implementation, ODYSSEUS closes its operational phase with validated technologies, documented performance results and a structured pathway toward future development and exploitation.
• Coordination of the project activities , maintaining Quality and Risk Management procedures, Data Management Plan created, Ethical Research framework Set-up and ethical principles implementation continuously monitored.
• Project’s actions were disseminated through various channels: the project website, social media platforms, and newsletters.
• Published 12 articles in total in a journal since the beginning of the project: 11 articles (including White Papers and a joint White Paper with sister projects) and 1 article for Open Research Europe that will be published soon
• Established collaborations with nine sister projects.
• All technological solutions are functional and validated.
• AI components progressed from initial assessment to full validation, including performance evaluation, and compliance verification within the established ethical framework.
• ODYSSEUS platform is stabilized and finalised into a fully integrated operational version deployed during pilot demonstrations.
• System integration and functional testing phases were successfully completed, including performance optimization and corrective refinements based on pilot validation results.
• Pilot demonstrations were conducted between December 2024 and July 2025 across the defined operational environments, culminating in full technical assessment and KPI consolidation.
• ODYSSEUS hosted 4 online workshops and contributed to several external workshops and clustering webinars with synergy projects where different topics were presented by the partners.
• ODYSSEUS project was presented or participated in more than 20 high-level events—including SRE 2025 Warsaw, EAB Research Projects conferences, SEC4BLUEconomy, and two Detection Hub workshops—reinforced ODYSSEUS’ positioning among relevant stakeholders.
• Project’s actions were disseminated through various channels: the project website, social media platforms, and newsletters.
• Published 12 articles in total in a journal since the beginning of the project: 11 articles (including White Papers and a joint White Paper with sister projects) and 1 article for Open Research Europe that will be published soon
• Established collaborations with nine sister projects.
• All technological solutions are functional and validated.
• AI components progressed from initial assessment to full validation, including performance evaluation, and compliance verification within the established ethical framework.
• ODYSSEUS platform is stabilized and finalised into a fully integrated operational version deployed during pilot demonstrations.
• System integration and functional testing phases were successfully completed, including performance optimization and corrective refinements based on pilot validation results.
• Pilot demonstrations were conducted between December 2024 and July 2025 across the defined operational environments, culminating in full technical assessment and KPI consolidation.
• ODYSSEUS hosted 4 online workshops and contributed to several external workshops and clustering webinars with synergy projects where different topics were presented by the partners.
• ODYSSEUS project was presented or participated in more than 20 high-level events—including SRE 2025 Warsaw, EAB Research Projects conferences, SEC4BLUEconomy, and two Detection Hub workshops—reinforced ODYSSEUS’ positioning among relevant stakeholders.
The ODYSSEUS Platform advances beyond this state of the art by integrating multiple technologies into a unified operational platform. It combines multi-modal identity verification, AI-driven risk assessment and multi-sensor data fusion within a single coordinated environment, enabling structured decision support for border authorities.
The platform was validated under realistic pilot conditions, demonstrating interoperability, system stability and measurable performance improvements. The achieved Technology Readiness Levels confirm the technical maturity of the integrated solution compared to isolated or laboratory-based approaches.
Further uptake will require continued operational validation at larger scale, regulatory alignment and support for interoperability standardization.
The platform was validated under realistic pilot conditions, demonstrating interoperability, system stability and measurable performance improvements. The achieved Technology Readiness Levels confirm the technical maturity of the integrated solution compared to isolated or laboratory-based approaches.
Further uptake will require continued operational validation at larger scale, regulatory alignment and support for interoperability standardization.