The PROACTIVE project aims to design, implement and test a new approach to homeland security that combines the traditional measures of public administrations with the latest generation of telecommunication technologies and the use of social networks as tools for monitoring and alerting the population. The concept at the heart of PROACTIVE is listening to the territory, through an innovative synthesis of heterogeneous sources: databases of the Public Administrations, data collected by sensors based on next-generation high-speed and high-reliability networks, and data provided by citizens considered as intelligent sensors. The PROACTIVE platform is based on advanced telecommunications infrastructures, connected by means of intelligent sensors, equipped with communication and computation capabilities and provides data streams enriched with context information (e.g., the position, or the presence of particular conditions, etc.). In addition to the data flows from the physical networks, PROACTIVE also monitors data flows from social networks, namely content (posts, images) created by the citizens.
These flows are intercepted by “virtual sensors”, i.e., applications of social data mining, created by Me-Source, Politecnico di Milano and Cefriel.
- People on the Move aims to monitor and predict the presence and flow of the population in near real time and with high accuracy by merging data from cellular networks, waste collection, geo-located tweets, traffic cameras and environmental sensors.
- SnowWatch analyzes photos of the mountains produced spontaneously by users or collected by webcams to identify peaks and snow levels and produce models for estimating water availability and optimal policies for water planning and management.
- LeakWatch aims to prevent disruption of canal banks with an integrated monitoring system with intelligent autonomous sensors in contact with pipes or valves to detect noise and potential leaks.