Periodic Reporting for period 2 - NOSY (New Operational Sensing sYstem)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2017-03-01 al 2018-08-31
Transversal activities. WP8 ‘Management’ and WP7 ‘Dissemination’ have been active since the beginning of the project period and will remain so until NOSY‘s expiration date. Their activities proceed in parallel with those of the other 6 WPs, whose work plan reflects a timetable designed to ensure greater coherence by having the research-relevant WPs strongly linked. For WP7 main results include the development of a comprehensive website, the production of project dissemination material, the organisation of the NOSY End user Dissemination Workshop and scientific dissemination. With regard to Managment the main results include the technical and administrative assistance, the work coducted to ensure Ethics management, and the organisation of project consortium meetings.
Research organization and results. The first eighteen months of the project period were dedicated and did achieve results in the following areas:
• Lay down the foundations for orienting the technical development by collect feedback on requirements and use cases for the NOSY project also thanks to the creation, and management of the End-Users Network (WP1)
• Develop improved sensitive functional materials as MIP elements optimized for high specificity and for integration with the microchip, to be used by the NOSY devices and the integrate the MIP, MOX nanosensors developed and the commercial UV LED with the SENSIPLUS microchip to obtain the NOSY microsensor device (WP 2 and WP 3)
• Design and develop the main system components and in particular: i) the base station, a software artefact supporting the platform preparation before any LEA mission; ii) the field devices, hosting the smart materials (WP2 and WP3 results) and subdivided into three types: sniffers, scanners and smart cables; iii) the handheld controller, an android based phone commanding field devices; and iv) the monitoring station, storing all the data collected in all missions and generating reports (WP4)
• Start up the work for the integration all developed modules (delivered by WP2, WP3, WP4) into the final end-to-end system and alongside validate compliancy with specifications from WP1, test interoperability and reliability (WP 5)
• Start up the planning of verification and validation activities in order to verify that the NOSY perform expected end user functions and devices meet the targeted performance (WP6)
• NOSY will deliver to LEA a set of tools that constitute a leap ahead in the ability to detect crime activity of narcotic trafficking and realization of improvised explosives. There are no similar devices available today, the level of miniaturization delivered by NOSY core technology is a >50x advancement to the current chemical sensing state of the art.
• Miniaturization, low cost, ease of use and effectiveness will enable widespread use of the NOSY devices among LEAs. The NOSY sensors can be installed on a need to use basis but also into infrastructures for permanent continuous environmental monitoring. The NOSY sensors can be embedded into the existing surveillance camera network. All of these deliver a much improved prosecution capability.
• The NOSY devices are tamper proof, miniature devices with secure and encrypted local data storage. They will be subject to a certification process to guarantee compliancy to all forensics requirements. Initially the devices will be tested to guarantee a less than 5% false positive or false negative accurate detection of the targeted compound. Over time the statistics will be improved to approach a virtual no errors device, with known techniques.
• The use of cryptographic functions both in the network, the collected data and in data stored in the various NOSY platforms ensures:
• That information in the network is hidden from casual onlookers and is protected by strong mathematical protocols against invested attackers. Additionally the encryption on all data stored is such that even in cases of theft of the equipment there is currently no practical manner for retrieving the stored information.
• The collected information is only readable and useable by the LEAs thus protecting both the privacy of the information itself and of potential citizens/entities that were target of the data collection.
• The NOSY project and its LEAs partnerships will enable the maturing of a technology that can be delivered to fulfil the crowdsourcing of humans safety vision. Such industry vision, also pursued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, calls for Smartphones, Wearable Devices and other connected electronics (surveillance cameras) be equipped with safety microsensors. The market potential is thus extremely large.
• All critical technologies employed for the development of the core microsensor technology are already at TRL5 (Technology readiness level) or 6. The aim of the NOSY project is to deliver demonstration devices at TRL7 with considerations of industrial scale up.