Context/background of the projectNAFTES was based on an innovative idea at developing a holistic Naval Fire Fighting Training and Education System (NAFTES) to complement existing training infrastructure available in a special Unit of the HMOD (Hellenic Navy, Naval Training Command). The innovative aspect of the project was the development of specialized content, currently missing by the training and content market, but highly demanded from the naval industry, i.e., content for training crew members and staff of engineering premises on facing effectively fire situations. In addition, the business aspect of the project was to highly increase the training capacity of the Damage Control School, in order to meet the challenges and needs of modern maritime businesses. Finally, the technological innovation was the integration of Augmented Reality (AR) technologies, interfaces and equipment, for on-site training, enhancing NAFTES drills and exercises. ObjectivesThe NAFTES project aiming at enhancing the quality of the training of ships crews, both military and commercial ones, on firefighting operations. The training is provided through an on-line platform, called NAFTES Etraining, which includes the use of rich media content, interactive content, innovative tools, mobile apps and AR (Augmented Reality) applications. Participating organizationsThe partnership comprises a multi-disciplinary team of four partners: naval firefighting experts from both navy (HMOD) and commercial shipping (DANAOS), education and pedagogic expert partners as well as ICT and multimedia specialists (GUnet, IES).ImpactThe ability to train crews and officers on a vessel stationed away from relevant premises or on board is will have a positive impact in the shipping businesses and in this sense it will have a broader international effect and impact. The Initial Training of a crew combined with traditional drills, and the completion of the training at a later time at the crew's convenience will only have a positive effect. At the same time the use of cutting edge technology such as AR prepares the crew, both mentally and physically, to achieve better fire-fighting skills and techniques. The efficiency in dealing with similar crisis situations onboard is of paramount importance for all participating countries (e.g., Greece, Cyprus and Italy) where the maritime industry is a key asset.Results The most important results of the project are the following: - The User Requirements Report (Output 1) made clear the need for onboard training, teleconference facilities, more AR Scenarios, in addition to the online blended firefighting training. The report includes analysis and discussions on the current state of art, good practices, pedagogical approaches, and the needs of the target groups. The main results had a major impact in the way that NAFTES was designed. - The NAFTES Fire Fighting Toolbox (Output 2), aimed at developing original, high quality and interactive educational materials for NAFTES Firefighting Training that follow the requirements and the standards of both adult and vocational training. It includes: a) the NAFTES Fire Fighting Training Curriculum an outline of the two different levels of Fire Fighting Training – A. Basic Firefighting, B. Advanced Firefighting, b) Course modules design and development of all training materials, c) Video shooting complete firefighting scenarios into the Fire Simulator in the HN Damage Control School and d) Translations into partners’ languages: en, it, el.- The NAFTES eTraining Platform and AR Application (Output 3) supports the delivery of all materials of the project and make online interactive tools such as teleconference, online synchronous and asynchronous communication, interactive modules, self-assessment exercises, etc. All educational materials are also presented open to the public through the NAFTES Open Digital library. Additionally, the NAFTES Etraining platform support the content downloading and its offline usage (without the need of Internet) supporting onboard training.- NAFTES Mobile Etraining application is a native app that provides an alternative means of accessing the materials hosted in the NAFTES Etraining platform and can be used as a virtual information and learning environment as well as for disseminating the project results. - NAFTES Firefighting AR Apps is one of the most important innovations introduced by the project and can be used as a tool for acquiring knowledge, motivating and encouraging trainees. At the NAFTES application only one AR App for Hololens Glasses was promised, but finally 3 different AR application for mobile devices and 3 for Hololens glasses were developed.Longer-term benefitsNAFTES is expected to increase significantly the training capacity of the Damage Control School and can be considered as a stable basis for building new training activities for ship crews and for the personnel of any kind of engineering premises.

EU trade, transport, tourism and economic development are directly dependent on open and safe seas and oceans. EU's maritime borders are widely spread including various topologies from open sea to semi-enclosed cabins with islands and islets. This poses great challenges that affect securing maritime border areas. Failing to protect against a wide array of maritime threats and risks may result in these areas becoming arenas for international conflicts, terrorism or organized crime, where smuggling, irregular immigration and drug trafficking are the most common ones. RANGER aims at re-enforcing EU by combining innovative Radar technologies with novel technological solutions for early warning, in view of delivering a surveillance platform offering detection, recognition, identification and tracking of suspicious vessels, capabilities exceeding current radar systems. It will be a platform, consisting of 2 radar technologies, a novel Over-The-Horizon Radar combined with a Multiple Input Multiple Output one implemented exploiting the latest photonics advancements, and an Early Warning System exploiting deep and adaptable machine learning schemes able to Automatically detect radar Targets. It safeguards seamless fitting and interoperability with CISE (enhanced maritime surveillance and cross border SaR operations), through the development of a CISE translation Gateway, exporting on-demand CISE services directly to end-users, by strengthening the information exchange between national authorities and the European Agency. RANGER leverages the experience of its consortium, a balanced blend of technology providers, domain experts and end-users, delivering a cost efficient, environmental friendly solution, abiding to regulations and legislation for the protection of human lives. Two pilot exercises are foreseen to thoroughly assess RANGER’s ability to deliver on its promises, enhancing its potential to become a flagship platform for the European Maritime Surveillance industry.

The purpose of the RAWFIE initiative is to create a federation of different network testbeds that will work together to make their resources available under a common framework. Specifically, it aims at delivering a unique, mixed experimentation environment across the space and technology dimensions. RAWFIE will integrate numerous testbeds for experimenting in vehicular (road), aerial and maritime environments. A Vehicular Testbed (VT) will deal with Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) while an Aerial Testbed (AT) and a Maritime Testbed (MT) will deal with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) respectively. The RAWFIE consortium includes all the possible actors of this highly challenging experimentation domain, from technology creators to integrators and facility owners. The basic idea behind the RAWFIE effort is the automated, remote operation of a large number of robotic devices (UGVs, UAVs, USVs) for the purpose of assessing the performance of different technologies in the networking, sensing and mobile/autonomic application domains. RAWFIE will feature a significant number of UxV nodes for exposing to the experimenter a vast test infrastructure. All these items will be managed by a central controlling entity which will be programmed per case and fully overview/drive the operation of the respective mechanisms (e.g., auto-pilots, remote controlled ground vehicles). Internet connectivity will be extended to the mobile units to enable the remote programming (over-the-air), control and data collection. Support software for experiment management, data collection and post-analysis will be virtualized to enable experimentation from everywhere in the world. The vision of Experimentation-as-a-Service (EaaS) will be promoted through RAWFIE. The IoT paradigm will be fully adopted and further refined for support of highly dynamic node architectures.