UASUV 2017 Med Unmanned Vehicles Technology | Page 35

Mr Gregorio AMEYUGO CATALAN
Principal Research Officer,
European Border & Coast Guard Agency - (FRONTEX)
Gregorio AMEYUGO has been working now more than seven years for the European Commission
Agency Frontex as Principal Research Officer developing, budgeting, implementing, and managing
complex multinational projects related to surveillance platforms, sensors, and communication
(including the technical development of EUROSUR for which he was the initiator and responsible.)
Previously, he worked four years at the European Defence Agency, under the EU Council, developing,
implementing, and managing multinational projects based on capacity building development (i.e. EU
Strategic Transport and Logistics for Security and Defence Deployments)
The Spanish Ministry of Defence detached him to NATO where he worked for more than five years in
developing, implementing, and managing multinational projects funded by the participant Member
States (i.e. Advanced Distributed Learning) and in creating a network of experts for the production and
disseminating of best practices and guidelines.
As a Navy Officer he spend ten years at sea, in different ships, covering Navigation and Operation areas
including Command and Control, Communications, Weapons and Sensors. He is today a reserve Navy
Captain.
His educational background includes Naval Officer Education at the Spanish Naval Academy and two
Master of Science, one in Operations Research at the US Naval Postgraduate School, and another in
Mathematics and Physics done at the Spanish Naval Observatory. His mother tongue is Spanish and he
is fluent in English and French, he also has basic German.
"Unmanned Vehicles in the EU frontiers: Advantages and shortfalls"
FRONTEX and the EU Border Control community make use already of aerial unmanned vehicles
deployed in the EU borders for surveillance and identification purposes.
Three main types of RPAS, using the acronym preferred by the international aviation-related agencies,
are in use at the EU border and pre-frontier areas today: Tactical PRAS in the land border, Vertical
Takeoff and landing PRAS flying from ships and Larger PRAS deployed in high seas areas.
This presentation describes the complexities, advantages and shortfalls of using these RPAS and give
information on the limitations that make unfeasible that other type of unmanned vehicles, specifically
surface or underwater, could be systematically deployed in border surveillance operations.
The presentation also addresses briefly the need to consider larger RPAS as part of the solution to cover
identified maritime surveillance needs and as a tool complementary (and still competing) with long-
range surveillance aircraft.