Work Packages

WORK PACKAGE 1: Project Management, Quality Assurance and Reporting

Objectives

  • Organize communication between the Consortium and the Commission concerning project progress and execution of the Contract;
  • Set up and run financial accounting and budget reporting processes within the Consortium, and between the Consortium and the Commission;
  •  Coordinate progress reporting within the Consortium by Work Package Leaders, and between the Coordinator and the Commission;
  • Monitor the progress of individual work packages, in terms of production of deliverables according to schedule, and other key indicators of progress;
  • Continuously monitor significant project risks: identify, assess probability and consequences, and devise mitigation strategies;
  • Deal with any conflicts which may arise between project participants (in accordance with the principles defined in the Project Management section;
  • Propose any modifications in the project plan which might be necessary in the light of experience in actually running the project, or due to factors external to the project. Carry out the formal steps needed to obtain approval by Consortium members and the Commission;
  • Constitute and run the project management bodies defined in the Project Management section;
  • Organize and run Project Reviews;
  • Monitor and ensure the gender balance in the consortium;
  • Ensure compliance with, and manage any changes to, the Consortium Agreement.

Scope

Work package 1 will provide the necessary support and monitoring for the project to be executed. The management of the project will establish regular communication channels between partners as the execution of the progress demands. Furthermore, reporting and monitoring of the project both on technical and economical level will provide valuable feedback upstream and downstream of the hierarchical tree.

Risks and conflicts that may emerge during execution will be handled according to the identified risk management plan. Additionally, consulting bodies of the consortium will provide scientific and technical support to tackle the issues that may arise.

WORK PACKAGE 2: Use Case Driven Requirements Engineering and Architecture

Objectives

  • Provide an appraisal of the ship landscape, by addressing methodological approaches to ship evacuation processing;
  • Assessment of equivalence with existing Class and Statutory requirements, gap analysis and identification of the pathway to cover the gaps for the PALAEMON novelties;
  • Define an inventory of diverse use cases in the field of data security and privacy, and perform an in-depth analysis of the corresponding scenarios of use considered in the pilot studies of the project;
  • Provide and perform extended literature survey to identify SoA technologies in a ship evacuation context, their shortcomings along with techniques and technologies currently in use;
  • Elicit the PALAEMON user requirements given the outcomes of the analysis performed above;
  • Analyse barriers and contributing factors regarding authorities’ acceptance and assure PALAEMON adaptation to meet these needs;
  • Design the overall architecture of the system;
  • Map user requirements into system requirements and specifications;
  • Evolve in the requirement gathering Stakeholder, End Users and Experts in a dedicated PALAEMON Workshop.

Scope

Within the scope of work package 2 fall all the research activities that will define the solution space of the project. A systematic analysis of the current situation in ship evacuation practices and technologies will be conducted. The Statutory and Class requirements will be recorded and examined against PALAEMONs’ innovative offering. Having knowledge of the current state and of the up-to-date literature regarding the research object, activities will be focused on the involvement of the various stakeholders and their respective needs. The result will be a comprehensive architecture of the system, a framework for the development of technical solutions. Additionally, within the scope of work package 2 also falls the organisation of a workshop that will bring all the stakeholders of the project closer and build communication channels, promoting the development of PALAEMON.

WORK PACKAGE 3 PALAEMON: Intelligence Framework - AI Services and Algorithms

Objectives

  • Evacuation Methodologies & Model Analysis;
  • Ship Stability Toolset;
  • Weather Forecasting Toolkit;
  • Predictive AI analytics for passenger comfort;
  • Development of Risk Assessment Platform;
  • Definition and development of Safety Procedures.

Scope

This work package is going to develop the Artificial Intelligence (AI) components and the corresponding algorithms, in order to provide PALAEMON intelligent services.

Evacuation methodologies for enhancing safety evacuation system on board of passenger vessels will be developed. This multi-stage task is to reach the optimal outcomes regarding the passengers and the crew supporting the evacuation operation. To achieve this evacuation data will be analysed to develop the required concept of Smart Safety System on board. The final system will be tested, and the process will be documented to compile end-user manuals. Toolkits for Ship Stability and Weather Forecasting will be developed to lay the foundation for further development and seamless integration later in the project. Complemented by an administrative tool for automated updates to safety procedures and the risk assessment platform that will be developed the work package introduces the groundwork for AI services and already forms a holistic system that will be used for training purposes by the PALAEMON Academy activities.

WORK PACKAGE 4 PALAEMON: Mass Evacuation Vessel

Objectives

  • To develop the hardware, software and middleware for the PALAEMON MEV according to the specification and use cases laid down in WP2;
  • To integrate the above components to form the fully functional PALAEMON MEV;
  • To verify the behaviour of the PALAEMON MEV using state-of-the-art software/ hardware co-simulation methods;
  • To measure the performance of the implemented solution using artificial test scenarios;
  • To design and develop PALAEMON MEV prototype;
  • To develop all the software components required for the in-sea operations of the MEV;
  • To integrate hardware/ software components into the platform and validate PALAEMON MEV system functionality in laboratory and testbed environments;
  • To assess the related requirements for each of the developments from a Statutory/ Class perspective.

Scope

In this task the design, analysis of the composite MEV-I will be accomplished taking into account the specifications and requirements set in WP2. The MEV-I will be designed to accommodate a large number of passengers, have a power train and will be studied in terms of stability, seakeeping and structural response in adverse weather. Other adverse situations include also launching mishaps scenarios which might compromise the structural integrity of the MEV and will be also examined to ensure the validity of the design. Finite Elements Analysis (FEA) is going to be used to evaluate the

design and novel materials like Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) will be used to achieve the desired performance and functionality. MEV-I will be fully defined and designed both internally and externally and the manufacturing data for the prototype will be produced. The resulting prototype will be used for testing in work package 8.

Along the MEV-I the development of the MEV-II concept will also take place in this work package. The concept of a MEV that is fully integrated in the super-structure of a ship is going to be developed. The feasibility analysis will include alternative implementations of the MEV-II components and also evaluation using state of the art FEA software as MEV-I to ensure validity of the designs.

WORK PACKAGE 5 PALAEMON: on-board mustering tools and services

Objectives

  • Integrate all software components and hardware platforms of the PALAEMON solution through a predefined integration methodology and schedule;
  • To undertake demonstrating activities of the developed systems to guarantee that all unitary developments are flawless and they co-function correctly as a product. Three field trials will be executed for validation of the PALAEMON functionality and performance;
  • To develop an integrated evaluation methodology to address functional, utility, security and data protection aspects of the envisaged innovation;
  • To provide evaluation services at various stages of the development: design, test installation, and trial assessment

Scope

This work package will provide the project with all the tools and services that harvest and feed data to the parties and equipment involved in the evacuation process.

Smart Bracelets will be developed to localize passengers and assist in evacuation route planning. Both indoor and outdoor functionality is desired and technologies that will enable this are Bluetooth low energy (BLE), outdoor positioning such as GPS and potentially technologies such as WiFi. Prototype devices will be produced for testing purposes.

Head mounted Augmented Reality (AR) Glasses for Ship Crew will be developed to grant them access to data enhancing real-time guidance. The devices will also be used as an additional communication channel with extended information capacity.

The UAV Inspection Module will be developed by adapting a fixed wing UAV to accommodate a hyper-spectral camera or a lidar and the receiver of the bi-static radar. This will contribute to the ecosystem valuable data regarding ship status.

PaMEAS (Passengers Mustering and Evacuation Process Automation System) is a significant sub-system that will be developed within work package 5. The System utilizes data gathered and assists in executing the predefined evacuation plan. Passengers, seafarers will be provided with automatic guidance in emergency situations, using a mobile application. PaMEAS will seamlessly integrate, with other PALAEMON back-end infrastructure systems and onboard tool and services, while building on top of existing ship IT infrastructure (e.g. Reservation and Check-in, Crew Management, Shipboard Property Management etc.). Technological frameworks suitable for use are Wi-Fi networks of Access Points (APs) and 4G LTE/5G Radio Dots to collect location information from the mobile antennas of passengers (and seafarers)’ mobile phones, as well as networks of sensing

machine learning component completes the above suite, to offer the possibility of improving location efficiency based on the analysis of past location paths, essentially by identifying structures and routines hidden in users’ past locations.

Smart Cameras will be introduced by designing and developing embedded hardware which will be connected to legacy cameras or commercial ones in order to locate trapped victims more accurately. Both ARM HPC and FPGAs will be considered, analysing pros and cons based on technical but also economic feasibility. Included will also be software modules that handle the incoming video stream; analyses it and evaluates them indicating events that need attention. In all cases, privacy will be ensured by not linking passenger tracking information with personal data.

WORK PACKAGE 6 PALAEMON: Back-End Infrastructure

Objectives

  • The ability to merge information that is generated from the components of WP3, WP4, WP5.
  • Warning, alerting and response coordination:

o message and information exchange at all levels –local, regional, cross-border and transnational;

o information gathering and management;

o intelligent decision support;

o scenario development and modelling of hazards and predictions;

o provision of actionable information for the support of operations.

  • To develop a virtual control room between the field crews of first responders;
  • To design and develop the Knowledge Base which will be the major unit for the decision support mechanism;
  • To incorporate knowledge regarding operational procedures and operational requirements.
  • To implement the ship structural sensing elements;
  • To develop the interoperability framework and API’s of the PALAEMON solution such that all components delivered in the project may be plugged-in to the software infrastructure;
  • To develop the PALAEMON data fusion middleware on top of the communications infrastructure;
  • To perform preliminary testing processes of the interoperability and communications framework for ensuring the required compliance to software infrastructure requirements and efficient, secure and transparent transfer of data and information between the various system entities and layers.

Scope

Work package 6 aims to development of the PALAEMON back-end to support the on-board operations at both operational and strategic levels.

This will entail developing the Ship Structural Monitoring Ecosystem and it’s network of sensors. Two types of sensors, Motion Sensors (MS) and Acoustic Emissions (AE) are going to be used. Data from both are going to provide input to models (beam model or FEA) that can predict propagation of local damage to the global structure.

To fully benefit from the streams of data the PALAEMON Data Fusion Middleware needs to be developed. It is using a modality processing pipeline that can transform heterogeneous data in real time by reducing the granularity from the signal/raw level to a semantic level. The fusion procedure includes autonomous fusion agents that are activated during the execution of the modality processing pipeline to perform modality fusion techniques on the data under transformation. The semantic data fusion bus will be built on the Apache Kafka distributed streaming platform.

Design and development of Interfaces and HMIs are an essential part of the system that involves actors from various stakeholder groups. The PALAEMON visualisation module, to be developed within this task, will comprise a set of interfaces and HMIs that allow datasets to be viewed graphically and combined with other datasets to improve the understanding of the end – user and identify possible solutions in many different scenarios related to passenger ship evacuation and rescue cases.

The PALAEMON On-Board Decision Support System will be the intelligence layer to the PALAEMON platform. It will generate alerts in the different use cases covered by the project; decide on the action to be performed in real-time; predict the crew next moves; prioritize/rank the severity and related criticality of unfolding events. Part of the work is also to define intervention strategies. Intervention will be based on the assessment of a situation using computer models, hypotheses testing and simulations and human assessment. Intervention strategy will be implemented by the people in charge (ship officers, other personnel, etc.).

Last, the PALAEMON Incident Management Module (PIMM) will be developed, a central multi-layer agent that will be capable of real time prediction and prevention, early detection, multi-response and risk mitigation. Expert knowledge will be fused in the system, creating a concise table of IF-THEN-ELSE statements, detailing the events and setting up contingencies. This will be combined with the fused data streams and the system will be accessed as a decoupled module at regular intervals to provide response strategies to the situation at hand.

WORK PACKAGE 7 PALAEMON: Integrated System and Technology Validation Trials

Objectives

  • Integrate all components and platforms of the PALAEMON solution through a predefined integration methodology and schedule;
  • To develop an integrated evaluation methodology to address functional, utility, security and data protection aspects of the envisaged innovation;
  • To provide evaluation services at various stages of the development: design, test installation, and trial assessment;
  • To provide the software integration infrastructure and tools for bug reporting, issue tracking, software builds and repository, software testing and verification;
  • To integrate the separate modules developed in WP3, WP4, WP5 and WP6 into an integrated end-to-end PALAEMON platform;
  • To produce and run a set of system-oriented and functional test cases against which the integrated platform prototypes will be technically evaluated;
  • To assure quality during the whole software development and integration process.

Scope

In this work package the PALAEMON Communication Platform will be finalised and integrated with all the modules developed in previous work packages. The streams of heterogenous data will be merged using IoT platform technologies. Integrating the middleware and handling the big data will enable the platform to provide data visualisation, call the appropriate modules (PaMeas, PIMM etc.) and provide linked services to multiple levels.

Encryption and Authentication Mechanisms are needed and the deployment of security mechanisms will be based on state of the art customised Anonymization/ Privacy Module. The use of external sources of identities either for PALAEMON users or for the connected PALAEMON assets will be considered to ensure trust on data provided by smart objects. End-to-end encryption for PALAEMON user plane communication combined with Integrity services will be deployed.

Uniform Data Exchange Modules – Interoperability Layer will be interconnecting the various parts of PALAEMON platform. It will develop all modules relevant to the communication and reliable data exchange. Moreover, it will implement mechanisms for the data aggregation and homogenization of based on a uniform PALAEMON semantic vocabulary.

A VDES Transceiver integrating the AIS, VDE and ASM functionalities into one single unit will be designed, developed and tested. Specifically, the development of a VDES transceiver will be performed following the Software-Defined Radio (SDR) paradigm, i.e., on an ad-hoc hardware platform, composed by an RF front-end specific for the VHF band interfaced to an embedded processor, which executes the baseband processing.

Last activities in this work package entail integration of PALAEMON Prototype System and the Testing. All systems will be integrated into the prototype and the testing will be based on the use case scenarios defined by the project. The validation of the ecosystem is the goal and to achieve this tools that report results, performance and efficiency are going to be developed. These will be used in the mature phase of the ecosystem for technical support and feedback.

WORK PACKAGE 8 PALAEMON: Application Field Trials, Evaluation and Outcomes

Objectives

  • Raising public awareness of project achievements among the key user groups and stakeholders in the Ship Evacuation technics, strategies and technologies, the scientific community and the general public;
  • To implement Ship Emergency Evacuation training scenarios in collaboration with end users;
  • Ensuring the availability of participants and other resources required for the graceful conduction of the pilots;
  • Setting up the pilot administrative wise (ethical approval, procurement of equipment if required etc.);
  • Creating the initialization content required for the realization of the pilot scenarios;
  • Localizing the PALAEMON interfaces in respect to the pilot needs;
  • Training users (i.e. naval & maritime authorities, ship operators and civilian participants) in the PALAEMON services. Additional specialized training sessions will be organized for application developers and administrators;
  • To monitor developments and demonstrations from Class perspective and provide corresponding feedback.

Scope

Work package 8 aims to facilitate all activities regarding the Field Trials and the Evaluation of Outcomes coming from them. To conduct pilot tests, all organizational setup affairs will be managed in this work package. This will extend from ethical to technical issues, involving all stakeholders of the project. To evaluate the PALAEMON Ecosystem Setup and Deployment performance KPI’s will be defined and associated to each module and use case scenario. Additionally, selection rules for the first responders participating in the test pilots will be defined, e.g. how many sessions and what type of simulations will they do and also the evaluation metrics used to test the efficiency of the PALAEMON platform.

The MEV prototypes validation demo will be conducted and the technical and procedural consistency will be assessed as is and compared to level zero practice. Furthermore, the passengers evacuation demo will be held in the 2nd field trial set when the PALAEMON system will be installed on partners ships. Last, the PaMEAS system will be tested in the 3rd field trial, when it will be also installed on a ship and it’s functionality will be tested by all stakeholders, ranging from passengers to external Search And Rescue teams.

All the above will provide valuable knowledge when the pilots will be evaluated. Lessons learnt will result to drawing up a “Recommendations and Best Practices” manual, to be also used as a reference point for training purposes.

WORK PACKAGE 9: Raising Awareness, Standardisation and Exploitation Roadmap

Objectives

  • Disseminate the PALAEMON achievements and findings to all key actors in the field, and integrate their feedback to the specification, design, development and evaluation work;
  • Develop a market-oriented dissemination and communication strategy;
  • Execute a consistent set of activities to ensure the success of the communication strategy;
  • Organize and/ or publish results in international journals, conferences, and workshops to inform the scientific community about PALAEMON, its goals, activities and results and to gather valuable information on related issues;
  • Definition of the PALAEMON’s business delivery model both in terms of business and technology;
  • Issue concrete exploitation plans for key project results and oversee IPR management within the project and beyond.

Scope

This work package will primarily cover the communication and dissemination needs of the project. To achieve this, dissemination material will be created reflecting the project’s progress and the achievements of the research effort. The dissemination material will be available on the dedicated site that will be created as well as other channels of media exchange and social/professional networks and portals. The policy governing material creation and publication will also be defined.

Additionally, the exploitation strategy and the business plan will also be developed within this work package. Towards this end different phases of plan development will take place covering the whole

spectrum from product identification to launch. An economic analysis will also be conducted to identify and formulate a financial and investment strategy.

Throughout the project’s development PALAEMON solutions’ equivalence with the existing statutory and class requirements. The analysis will be based on an extensive gap analysis of the PALAEMON solutions to identify the gaps towards their validity and applicability from Class/ Statutory perspective. Then, the pathway to cover these gaps will be identified.

In support to the project’s analysis a multi-criteria multi group decision assessor platform will be developed supporting centralized real time evaluation of PALAMEON evacuation eco-system against predefined attributes by a group of evaluators from a diversity of disciplines. Results of analysis will be reported to assess in overall the effectiveness, readiness and feasibility of PALAEMON emergency and evacuation ecosystem application to shipping industry.

Together with the above, to ensure the positive outcome of installations a PALAEMON-specialized curriculum will be developed for training activities. Given that gamified versions of the system have already been developed, these will be part of the training system. The predefined use case scenarios can

WORK PACKAGE 10: Ethics requirements

Objectives

  •  Ensure compliance with the ‘ethics requirements’ set out in this work package.

Scope

This work package sets out the ‘ethics requirements’ that the project must comply with.