IMMERSE. INTERACT. INVESTIGATE

Project Information

INFINITY

Grant agreement ID: 883293

DOI

10.3030/883293

Project closed

EC signature date 11 May 2020

Start date 1 June 2020

End date 31 August 2023

Funded under

• Secure societies - Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens

Total cost

€ 6 866 503,75

EU contribution

€ 6 866 503,75

Coordinated by

AIRBUS DEFENCE AND SPACE SAS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INFINITY (IMMERSE. INTERACT. INVESTIGATE)

Reporting period: 2021-12-01 to 2023-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

INFINITY project aims at developing an immersive environment that will enable a collaborative processing of major LEAs operations in international and inter-agencies mode. The system will be constituted by a collaborative environment with a high level of security that will provide:
1. The capability to upload data and documents related to the operation, in respect with the legal procedures;
2. The capability to have accredited teams of the participating units to enter the environment through avatars with associated credentials;
3. The services needed to update the data and info in respect of the ethical and compliance rules;
4. The capability to organise meetings and collaborative work in secured conditions;
5. Analysis tools allowing to create syntheses and adapted decision support;

The project is built according to the abovementioned objectives with on one side the development of the environment and its associated tools and, on the other side, the development of services that are necessary to update the situation picture and the data bases.

The project is user driven by necessity as the environment and the tools need to match with the way the end-users want to work. The system also needs to fully respect the regulatory framework supporting the LEAs operations.
The system will be developed incrementally around two main versions (V1 and V2). Each version will be tested with 3 main scenarios to enable the assessment by the end-users and recommendations for future operational systems.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first period of the project, the following works were performed:

- Analysis of the user requirements;
- Elaboration of the operational scenarios that will support the tests of the system versions;
- Elaboration of system specifications and system design;
- Development of the fist iteration of the INFINITY components;
- First pilot supported by demonstrations of the existing components;


During the second period, the components of the system were finalised in an iterative wayand following the recommendations of the end-users. To achieve this iterative process, 3 pilots were organised and performed: Pilot 2a that took place in December 2022 in San Sebastian (Spain) was the first pilot to test and demonstrate the first version of the integrated system. All the end-users were present and gave an essential feed-back to the technical partners? The second pilot of the period, Pilot 2b took place in April 2023 in Rome (Italy) to test the second version of the integrated system after several meetings with the end-users in UK, Spain and Greece. To complete the tests of the system and to get a full assessment (operational and technical) of INFINITY, a third pilot was organised in June. This pilot was performed in a remote way by connecting the end-users in their own premises, which is the raison d'être of INFINITY. The project was closed by a final demonstration in the end of July 2023 in Sheffield (UK). Many end-users of the project were present and external organisations were also invited. It was an important milestone for dissemination and fruitfull discussions took place to give recommendations for the follow-up of the project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

During the first period, the development just started. The most important progress expected is the immersive environment with all the tools integrated in it. The main innovation from INFINITY lies in this environment. The services that will be installed in the environment are evolutions of services that have already been evaluated in other projects. The societal implications are important, since the terrorist and illegal operations are now international and necessitate quick and flexible collaboration capabilities between agencies and countries to keep a time advantage for LEAs. INFINITY will adopt advanced technologies in the fields of big data and visual analytics, AI, machine/deep learning, XR collaborative environments, to equip LEAs with an integrated solution and assist them in adressing effectively threats from crime and terrorism.

The core features of INFINITY project are illustrated in this image.