Unattended Items Detection Algorithms are Ready for Testing!

Summer is usually a quiet time of the year, but not for the PREVENT PCP team. Our representatives visited 4 premises of Contractors, which are competing in a PCP process. We are satisfied with overall progress, but those meetings were crucial from the project’s perspective.

The main focus of PREVENT PCP is the procurement of technologies that will improve security in both public transportation and public areas. To achieve expected results, we rely on a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) approach. It is an efficient and dependable method for contracting authorities to challenge market innovators through an open, transparent, and competitive process.

At the end of 2022, the project team selected 6 Contractors composed by tech companies which entered the Solution Design Phase. They had to prepare plans covering multiple aspects related to technical issues, commercialisation, innovation and data management, ethics, risk management, GDPR and IPRs management plan. After the mentioned stage, the Call off for Prototype Development Phase was launched. After a thorough evaluation process, 4 tenderers were awarded with a contract:

• DAIMON Consortium – CS GROUP France, CERTH, XXII Group
• PREVAIL Consortium– Satways Ltd., Imotion Analytics, Vicomtech
• BULL SAS – Bull SAS (Atos)
• PANOPTES Consortium – Herta Security S.L., ChapsVision, ACIC SA

One of the next steps were above-mentioned visits, which were organised in July at the Contractors premises. The main reason was to test algorithms that are developed under the PCP process. They should be capable to respond to the main challenges identified by PREVENT PCP: unattended items identification and tracking of its owners.

These tests helped assess the progress of the current phase. We evaluated how the Contractors implemented multiple features, such as classification, association, re-identification, unattended item alerts and tracking of the owners. The project team provided feedback that will be considered before the installation of the solutions in SNCF premises in August. The practical evaluation of the prototypes, installed and connected to a limited number of SNCF cameras in Paris Nord station is planned for September and October 2023.

During the visits, the PREVENT PCP Consortium used datasets recorded with volunteers to test the algorithms. The results are very interesting and complement comments provided to the Contractors during the last Progress Meetings.

Check out our website and social media channels for updates. Soon we will publish news about both the practical tests of the technology prototypes and other activities currently undertaken by the PREVENT PCP team.