Civil installations such as power plants are often located in wide and remote areas. In the coming years, the number of small distributed facilities will increase as a direct result of new European environmental policies aimed at increasing societies' resilience to local manifestations of climate change. Yet the protection of fragmented assets will be difficult to achieve and will require portable security systems that are affordable to those in charge of their management.

The BASYLIS project aims to address these issues by developing a low-cost smart sensing platform that can automatically and effectively detect a range of security threats in complex environments. The principal obstacles to early threat detection in wide areas are of two types: functional (e.g. false-alarm rate) and ethical (e.g. privacy). Both problems are amplified when installations are dynamic or located in changing environments. Potential solutions are unaffordable to most of the potential users. The BASYLIS system will consist of a transportable security platform capable of detecting a wide range of pre-determined security threats. The prototype design will include four highly sensitive sensors exploiting different parts of the spectrum: radio, magnetic, seismic, acoustic and optical waves, as well as images via intelligent video.

The information gathered by these sensors is then brought together into an information layer composed of three levels: multi-sensor integration (MSI), image processing and risk assessment. The BASYLIS system will be characterized by high performance and high usability index. The engagement of end users in the specification and validation of the design has been considered from the start of the project, ensuring that the design of the final system meets the needs of the users. BASYLIS consortium has decided to focus on 'refugees-camps' a 'hot-spot' environment where European and UN aids are injured, killed or kidnapped every year.