Between 15-18 July 2025, Frontex attended the ODYSSEUS Trials in Romania, near Iasi. ODYSSEUS is an Innovation Action initiated in January 2023, carried out in the framework of the EU Research and Innovation Programme (Horizon Europe).
Frontex, under the Terms of reference signed with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG Home), provides its assistance to the Directorate-General in relation to projects in the border security domain, namely in the areas of programming, evaluation of research proposals, monitoring of project results, and participates in selected activities of border-security projects such as tests, trials, and demonstrations of technologies.
The ODYSSEUS project focused on enabling citizens to seamlessly cross the border without stopping, while reducing the workload and improving productivity for Border Guard Authorities, equipping them with novel tools for secure identity verification and unobtrusive vehicle/luggage/cargo checks.
The main outcomes of the project included solutions for citizens to cross borders leveraging their smartphones, combined with strong and continuous identity verification and solutions for border guard authorities to perform remote vehicle/luggage scanning through X-Rays and UAVs.
The train trial, conducted in Ungheni (Iasi), focused on identity verification technologies, enabling Border Guard Authorities to check the identity of the travellers and screen the cargo the trains. Faceless person counting facilitated the cross-referencing of verified passengers with those present to identify any unregistered individuals. Border Guard Authorities were equipped with portable devices allowing them to validate the identity of the passengers by checking the Mobile Passport and conducting face matching within the train.
The land trial was conducted in Albita (Iasi) and integrated UAV-assisted thermal scanning of the vehicle with an internally developed mobile passport to streamline the identity verification process. Passengers were required to register their passport in the mobile application before the trip and use the mobile passport during the journey to complete identity verification. Meanwhile, the ODYSSEUS platform was notified that specific individuals were approaching the border. A UAV conducted face recognition and 1:N face identification on the vehicle's passengers and cross-referenced their profiles with those registered via the Mobile Passport.
The project is coordinated by Software Imagination & Vision (Romania) with 12 participants from 11 countries, and one partner from United Kingdom.
