Ireland is the softest target in EU for smugglers.
Ireland’s 3171 kilometres of coastline and marine area 10x of its land size is impossible to effectively police with 9 naval ships.
Gateway for contraband including drugs into EU with only <10% caught.
The human cost of drug smuggling is huge
Drug related deaths in Ireland are 3x greater per capita than EU average
22,515 drug offences in Ireland, a 13.5% increase from previous year
Ships and Helicopters :
▶ Not a scalable solution
Unmanned Systems :
Still in its infancy with significant shortcomings
▶ Existing military solutions too expensive and not flexible to deploy
▶ Smaller drones cannot operate in harsh weather conditions
▶ High degree of manual operation and analysis is costly
▶ Long range communication relying on satellite links with high latency, low capacity, and high costs
A new Maritime drone will be developed which will be capable of taking off and landing to a ship deck.
The new system will have long endurance and range and will be operable under rough maritime conditions.
Gigabit mm-wave mesh network capability with novel lens antennas, and automatic beam steering will be developed.
Multi-connectivity for reliability, low latency, and seamless mobility across multiple cellular and satellite will be developed.
VR will be used to remove humans from exposure to risk.
This will be achieved by using robotics and human-in-the loop high value decision making through telepresence & ML.
With expertise regarding smuggling at sea from defence perspective and requirements for drug interdiction provided by the Naval Services, The trials including start/stop from ships and using ships as communication platforms will be performed.
DTIF GUARD will make Ireland a leader in autonomous drones.
Enable the SMEs to significantly scale up their operations and create 500 jobs in Ireland.
Help the Irish Navy to address the large societal problem of drug smuggling to Ireland and the EU.
Technology is broadly applicable and will allow the 3 Irish SMEs to address the $45Bn/a smart drone market.