The fifth in-person plenary meeting of the TESTUDO project took place on April 24 near Athens, Greece, at a picturesque location managed by EYDAP.
During the meeting, partners discussed a summary of recent project activities, with a particular focus on the recently completed trials. These activities laid the groundwork for the upcoming demonstration under Use Case 3. The data collected during the trials confirmed that the defined objectives had been successfully achieved. As usual, participants were also presented with the current status of work on the TESTUDO system, organised by individual work packages.
The meeting concluded with a clear outline of the consortium’s next steps. In the near future, project partners will carry out a preliminary evaluation of the system based on the collected data. Over the next few weeks, the focus will be on completing the final system integration ahead of the final project phase — the UC3 demonstration.
On April 29th, 2026 TESTUDO held an online workshop for stakeholders focused on CI protection in response to environmental and security challenges.
The workshop was targeted to all the safety and security professionals in critical infrastructures: tunnel construction companies and tunnel operators, Fire Brigades, Police, UAV providers, chemical industries, traffic monitoring centres and other key players of the technologies developed in the project.
Workshop presentations and discussions were focused on identifying safety & security challenges in tunnels and water facilities as well as recently completed TESTUDO UC2 trials and integrated technical training for the end-users.
The stakeholders’ expertise and perspective are vital for the project developments to ensure they are aligned with real-world market needs and user requirements and consider all potential regulatory, technical, or social hurdles to adoption.
TESTUDO consortium invites all the safety and security professionals in critical infrastructure protection to join the TESTUDO Stakeholders Community and become a member of the Stakeholders Forum via contacting: testudo@t4ieng.com
ACCELI presented various types of their UAVs, with the versatile octa-copter CERBERUS among them, which will be utilised as one of the TESTUDO assets.
The A+R Expo ’26 is the most important exhibition event for the automation and robotics sector in Greece, where the most advanced technological solutions in automation and robotics are presented, along with new and emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and drones.
The discussions taking place during the exhibition and the open exchanges of views help to highlight new trends and draw useful conclusions for the future of the sector. The topics covered range from the application of AI and machine learning technologies to the impacts of automation on employment and society in general.
Konstantinos Gkountakos presented TESTUDO, its strategic goals and objectives, system architecture, technological assets and three Use Cases. The project was also presented at a dedicated booth featuring a roll-up banner, promotional video, and brochures, allowing direct engagement with attendees.
The goal of the RISE-SD 2026 was to provide a unique forum for disseminating scientific results, support knowledge exchange, and create networking and clustering opportunities for security stakeholders of EU-funded projects in security and defense.
Each year the Symposium serves as a platform to boost cooperation among scientific organisations, SMEs and the European security industry, practitioners, policymakers as well as other stakeholders with the overall objective to ensure a successful market uptake of the European research results in security and defence.
Today, the 2nd TESTUDO Policy brief “Operational Readiness in Critical Infrastructure Protection: Early Insights from TESTUDO Pilots“ has been publicly released.
Key Highlights
TESTUDO strengthens critical infrastructure protection through an integrated, real-time platform combining AI-enabled detection, predictive analysis, multi-sensor fusion, and coordinated robotic assets to enhance operational readiness.
UC2 pilot validation confirmed high-accuracy visual detection above 80% mean Average Precision (mAP), predictive accuracy of 80% or higher, stable low-latency performance under concurrent sensor feeds, and smooth system integration across components.
User feedback identified usability constraints, including alert overload and limited multi-sensor correlation, highlighting the need for improved prioritisation and clearer visualisation.
While aligned with the key EU frameworks, TESTUDO pilots underscored the absence of harmonised EU validation and certification pathways for AI- and autonomy-enabled critical infrastructure protection tools.
Context and objectives
This brief evaluates TESTUDO’s operational readiness and pilot outcomes, aiming to translate early evidence into actionable EU policy. It emphasizes performance, usability, and interoperability lessons learned from realistic pilot deployments.
Key Achievements and Findings
Critical infrastructure (CI) is essential to public safety, economic stability, and social well-being. However, increasing threats such as cyber-attacks, climate change-induced disasters, and other disruptions necessitate innovative solutions to enhance resilience. The TESTUDO project, funded by the European Commission under Horizon Europe, integrates artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analytics, and autonomous systems to protect CI through real-time threat detection and response.
Technological Progress: Developed a real-time platform for automated hazard identification and decision support tailored to operators.
Pilot Insights: Simulated incidents demonstrated robust performance and integration, but revealed usability constraints requiring improved alert management and visualisation.
Policy Alignment: TESTUDO aligns with EU regulations but faces barriers due to the lack of standardised validation frameworks for AI in critical infrastructure.
TESTUDO in Numbers
Policy recommendations
Short-term (0-1 year): Establish EU-wide testbeds for AI-enabled protection tools, enhancing usability and interoperability.
Medium-term (1-3 years): Integrate predictive AI into national policies, developing common validation standards for autonomous tools.
Long-term (3+ years): Create cross-sector cooperation platforms to sustain preparedness and align AI certification with resilience frameworks.
Key message
Europe’s critical infrastructure faces increasing risks from climate disruptions and cyber-physical threats. TESTUDO demonstrates that AI-enabled solutions can significantly enhance operational readiness but highlights the need for usable systems, clear accountability, and harmonized EU standards to facilitate practical uptake.
Read the full version of the 2nd Policy Briefhere.
Recently, TESTUDO consortium has completed the second live trial (UC2), with the main objective of testing the system’s functionality and presenting its current state to a broader audience of stakeholders.
Operating in a challenging in-field environment was a valuable milestone for all the project partners. The challenges encountered during the preparation phase were successfully overcome, enabling the execution and testing of fundamental system functionalities, including communication pipelines between the modules responsible for UxV mission allocation, video analysis and sensor readings.
Before moving on to the next steps of system integration and preparations for the final use case, the partners will analyse the registered data as well as stakeholders’ opinions gathered after the system presentation.
The 4th physical plenary meeting of the TESTUDO project was held in Bilbao, Spain, on 5th December.
The review of project activities focused on concluding the recently completed execution of UC#2 trials, with all partners involved having the opportunity to present the current state of developments made in the TESTUDO system.
In the coming weeks, the technical partners will proceed with verifying the gathered data and validating the outcomes of UC#2. The launch of the Use Case 2 activities was a core part of the next steps column for all pending work packages.
TESTUDO’s research team from the Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH) has recently published a research paper in the MDPI journal Sensors.
The main findings of the work show that thermal object detection increases surveillance capabilities and can greatly complement other surveillance systems. Results of the study suggest that the use of thermal automatic detection systems proves to be a practical and economical solution for surveillance.
The second issue of TESTUDO Newsletter has been published and is available for download here.
The Newsletter covers summary of the activities and accomplishments in the second year of the project implementation and some highlights on the work in progress as well as dissemination and clustering activities.
Get more to know about TESTUDO and read our Newsletter!
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TESTUDO strengthens critical infrastructure protection through an integrated, real-time platform combining AI-enabled detection, predictive analysis, multi-sensor fusion, and coordinated robotic assets to enhance operational readiness. 
Validate the Solution: Ensure the project developments align with real-world market needs and user requirements. 
