Workshop on Vision-enabled UAV and counter-UAV technologies for surveillance and security of critical infrastructures (UAV4S)

The Workshop on Vision-enabled UAV and counter-UAV technologies for surveillance and security of critical infrastructures (UAV4S) will be hosted by the 12th International Conference on Computer Vision Systems (ICVS 2019), which will be held in Thessaloniki, Greece, on 23-25 September 2019.

Context and objectives

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are growing rapidly in a wide range of consumer applications. These applications include embedded and real-time vision processing capabilities proven to be both autonomous and flexible in a variety of environments and tasks. However, UAVs also represent passive or active threats of criminal activities or terrorism by collecting intelligence information, transporting explosives, chemical or bacteriological weapons, causing collision threats like around airports, or even affecting the credibility of public authorities by demonstrating that security measures are not efficient enough, leading to a confidence crisis. There are no off-the-shelf Counter UAV (C-UAV) solutions effective enough in all operational contexts that can reliably detect, localize, identify and mitigate the threat of suspicious and potentially multiple UAVs. In this context, vision, acoustic and radar based implementations are considered the most promising approaches for addressing the challenges associated with C-UAV technology for surveillance and security of important facilities. These approaches can be further augmented by emerging artificial intelligence solutions of multi-sensor information fusion that can leverage accuracy and reliability of detection systems. 

The workshop aims to stimulate research activities towards current technological advances and challenges about the development of UAV vision embedded technologies for surveillance and C-UAV detection localization and identification algorithms, methods and tools, by utilizing enhanced computational vision, acoustic, radar and fusion methodologies. In addition, the objective of this workshop is to serve as an interdisciplinary forum for bringing together specialists from the scientific areas of Computer Vision, Surveillance, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Security Research, promoting the formation of a community around the topic and gathering an increased number of researchers and practitioners. To pursue these objectives, a variety of speakers are invited, such as Patrick Garnier from Diginext, which is the coordinator of the H2020 ALADDIN Project that aims to develop a novel C-UAV solution with increased accuracy of detection of potential UAVs. 

Topics of interest

The workshop includes papers related but not limited to surveillance and security topics based on vision methods. Counter-Drone solutions are expected but other approaches are welcome, too. Papers are solicited on all areas, including but not limited to the following research topics:

  • Vision-based navigation and assessment
  • Detection, localization, and identification vision-based methods
  • Multi-sensor fusion techniques
  • Collaborative vision algorithms for navigation and environment perception
  • Augmented reality applications
  • Machine learning in UAV and C-UAV technology
  • Deep learning in UAV and C-UAV technology
  • UAV and C-UAV related tools and applications
  • Surveillance trends for infrastructures
  • Vision-based methodologies for enhanced security

Organizers

  • Dr. Dimitrios Zarpalas, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece
  • Dr. Konstantinos Votis, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece

Important Dates

  • Paper Submission Deadline: 10 June 2019 20 June 2019 (EXTENDED)
  • Notification of Acceptance: 1 July 2019
  • Camera - Ready Papers: 15 July 2019
  • Conference: 23-25 September 2019

Submission Instructions

Authors are asked to prepare the layout of their papers according to the Instructions for ICVS2019 authors. Each paper must not exceed 10 pages in the LNCS format (Instructions for the Preparation of Camera-Ready Contributions to LNCS Proceedings). A thorough review process will be adopted. The review process will be double blind, so the paper must not include any information, which allows the authors to be identified. A camera-ready paper will be required provided the acceptance of the submission. 

Please email your submission before 10th June 2019 23:59 CET following the instructions below:

  • Submission to: zarpalas@iti.gr
  • Subject: “Vision-enabled UAV and counter-UAV technologies for surveillance and security of critical infrastructures (UAV4S)”
  • Include authors names, affiliations and contact information
  • Attached file: pdf
  • Additional links or illustrations are welcome.

At least one author of an accepted submission is required to attend the workshop and must register for the main ICVS conference. Accepted papers will be published in the adjunct conference proceedings.

Contact

Dr. Dimitrios Zarpalas, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece, zarpalas@iti.gr