Deep AR Law Enforcement Ecosystem
Overview
Augmented reality (AR) holds significant potential in smart policing, requiring law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to undergo continuous digital transformation to stay ahead of criminals and terrorists. By overlaying critical information directly onto the real world, AR technology can significantly enhance situational awareness —a vital skill that is crucial to the safety and survival of officers and civilians during law enforcement operations. However, available technologies lack the processing capacity for rapid, real-time scene interpretation, which is essential for effective responses to criminal and terrorist incidents.
DARLENE investigated how AR could be deployed in real-time to support LEAs in making rapid, informed decisions by combining AR with powerful AI/ML algorithms, sensor information fusion, 3D reconstruction, wearable technology, and personalised context-aware recommendations. DARLENE provided European law enforcement agencies with a proactive security solution that combines AR technology, AI, and IoT-level situational awareness, delivered through affordable, lightweight, and inconspicuous AR glasses. A community of LEAs and stakeholders was built, which guided the development and validation of the DARLENE ecosystem, ensuring alignment with real security needs. DARLENE’s results paved the way for field deployment and commercial uptake of innovative, tech-driven policing applications.
Objectives
Achieve real-time semantic segmentation to overlay useful information directly on top of the real world through augmented reality (AR) glasses and enable detection of objects and events (i.e. holding a firearm) without facial recognition technology.
Enable officers to see the locations of people inside buildings through concrete walls with the help of internal devices and highlight additional information (friend or foe, in need of medical assistance) to reduce friendly fire casualties and threats.
Demonstrate the potential and value of 5G systems in field trials and develop 5G radio deployment and network architecture options for the DARLENE AR-based law enforcement ecosystem.
Develop a personalised Heads-Up Display (HUD) framework and companion smart band to monitor the users’ physiological state and improve situational awareness.
Develop a robust legal and ethical framework for the DARLENE eco-system to ensure compliance and sustainability of the innovation with all relevant regulations and ethics principles.
Develop a tutorial kit and training materials for end-user law enforcement agencies to support the wide dissemination of project results.
eBOS Role in the Project
In DARLENE, eBOS contributed to the technical development of the platform by supporting the identification of end-user requirements and providing input into the architectural specifications of the system. The company was actively involved in defining and executing the project’s use cases. eBOS also played a key role in setting up and maintaining the Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) infrastructure, as well as managing and orchestrating it throughout the project. In addition, eBOS supported the deployment of the DARLENE 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) testbed at Larnaca International Airport in Cyprus, where demonstrations of the solution were conducted.
Beyond technical tasks, eBOS led the dissemination and communication activities, to maximise the project’s visibility and impact. This included developing a detailed dissemination plan, designing DARLENE’s logo and visual identity, and developing and maintaining the project’s website and social media channels. Furthermore, leveraging its experience in bringing solutions to market, eBOS lead the development of the project’s Exploitation strategy.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 883297.
