Civilian Harbour Protection: Interception of Suspect Vessels with Unmanned Surface Vehicles

In the last decade, the security of civilian transportation hubs has received an increasing focus. Civilian harbors are no exception, and to this aim Unmanned Surface Vehicles could be exploited for patrolling purposes and to investigate suspect situations, increasing the effectiveness of the harbor protection system while lowering the number of humans directly exposed to threats. The use of a team of USVs for the security of civilian harbors is the subject of an on-going research project between DIST and Selex-SI, a leading player for homeland security systems. This paper presents the latest results of the project, which are centered on the problem of intercepting a suspect vehicle. Both the off-line optimization of the positioning of the USV fleet and the on-line selection of the most suitable USV are tackled.