Skopje, North Macedonia \u2013 9\u201310 June 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The AI4CUAV consortium successfully held its Final Progress Meeting and Public Institutional Showcase at Mother Teresa University (MTU) in Skopje, North Macedonia, bringing together project partners, researchers, end-users, and representatives of national institutions involved in security, defence, aviation, digital transformation, and critical infrastructure protection.The event served both as a consortium progress meeting and as an opportunity to present the project’s achievements to relevant stakeholders from North Macedonia, while discussing future challenges and opportunities in the field of AI-based counter-UAV technologies.The public session was officially opened by Prof. Dr. Bekim Fetaji, Rector of Mother Teresa University, and Dr. Alessandro Cantelli-Forti, NATO Country Project Director and AI4CUAV Project Director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The opening programme featured two keynote presentations addressing the growing security challenges posed by unmanned aerial systems:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– Drone Threats and Critical Infrastructure Protection, presented by Asst. Prof. Nikola Manev, Dr. Sc., Head of the Laboratory for Emerging Technologies at the Military Academy \u201cGeneral Mihailo Apostolski\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– The Weaponisation of Drones \u2013 A Threat from Above Used for Terrorist Purposes, presented by Asst. Prof. Kire Babanoski, Dr. Sc., Faculty of Security \u2013 Skopje.During the technical sessions, consortium partners presented their latest achievements and ongoing activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CNIT-RASS presented its radar-based drone detection and classification framework, including results obtained from the Rome experimental dataset and the application of AI-based approaches for radar target recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The International University of Sarajevo (IUS) presented progress on EO\/IR drone detection, tracking, and data fusion, including synchronized EO and IR datasets, detection models, and ongoing work on multi-sensor fusion and tracking.UniLink and Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs (KhNUIA) discussed operational requirements, user scenarios, and evolving UAV threats, highlighting the importance of AI-supported detection, classification, and tracking systems for future counter-UAV operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mother Teresa University (MTU) presented its activities related to drone-detection evaluation and benchmarking, including the development of an evaluation framework and experimental studies exploring the limits of drone detection under different operational conditions. The MTU team also presented its ongoing scientific dissemination activities, including a journal paper currently under evaluation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additional project contributions included the presentation of the Customized AI Models Platform for Counter-UAV Solutions by Dea Kacoli and the Automated Pipeline for Incremental AI Model Building, supporting future dataset-driven AI model development and interaction with end-users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A practical demonstration was conducted at the Stenkovec testing field, where project partners demonstrated drone observation and detection capabilities using an EO-only configuration. While the original plan envisioned a broader multi-sensor setup involving EO, IR, and radar systems, customs-related and operational constraints limited the deployment of the complete configuration. Nevertheless, the demonstration provided valuable data and operational experience for future validation activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event attracted representatives from several national institutions, including the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of North Macedonia, Civil Aviation Agency, Military Academy \u201cGeneral Mihailo Apostolski\u201d, Faculty of Security \u2013 Skopje, Ministry of Digital Transformation, and the Army of the Republic of North Macedonia, who actively participated in discussions regarding operational deployment, regulatory considerations, and future counter-UAV capacity-building activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The meeting concluded with discussions on the remaining technical activities, future validation campaigns, scientific dissemination, dataset publication, and preparations for the final phase of the project, including a proposed project extension aimed at completing the planned multi-sensor validation activities and integrated data-fusion experiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event received strong institutional support and visibility. News articles covering the AI4CUAV meeting and public showcase were published by Mother Teresa University, the Military Academy \u201cGeneral Mihailo Apostolski\u201d, and other participating institutions, highlighting the growing importance of international cooperation, artificial intelligence, and counter-UAV technologies for security and critical infrastructure protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The AI4CUAV consortium thanks all participating institutions, end-users, researchers, students, and project partners for their valuable contributions and continued support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Skopje, North Macedonia \u2013 9\u201310 June 2026 The AI4CUAV consortium successfully held its Final Progress Meeting and Public Institutional Showcase at Mother Teresa University (MTU) in Skopje, North Macedonia, bringing together project partners, researchers, end-users, and representatives of national institutions involved in security, defence, aviation, digital transformation, and critical infrastructure protection.The event served both as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":711,"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions\/711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ai4cuav.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}