On 1^st of January 2017 the European cooperative research project, ALFA was officially started. The main objective of the project is the development of a system for timely detection, classification and understanding of the intentions of suspected air targets. ALFA will be executed in close cooperation with two principal end users in the consortium, namely the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Portugal (Guarda Nacional Republicana – GNR) and Spain (Dirección General de la Guarda Civil – GC). The major advantage of their active participation is that the ALFA system will be demonstrated in a realistic environment. The ALFA consortium brings together a European team of recognized organizations from various backgrounds, making it well-positioned to achieve its objectives. All in all there are 9 partners from 6 different European countries (Austria, The Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Germany) including 3 industrial partners, 1 SME, 1 university, 2 research institutions and 2 government agencies.