Multi-Sensor Satellite Data Processing for Marine Traffic Understanding

Abstract

The work described in this document concerns the estimation of the kinematics of a navigating vessel. This task can be accomplished through the exploitation of satellite-borne systems for Earth observation. Indeed, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and optical sensors installed aboard satellites (European Space Agency Sentinel, ImageSat International Earth Remote Observation System, Italian Space Agency Constellation of Small Satellites for Mediterranean basin Observation) return multi-resolution maps providing information about the marine surface. A moving ship represented through satellite imaging results in a bright oblong object, with a peculiar wake pattern generated by the ship’s passage throughout the water. By employing specifically tailored computer vision methods, these vessel features can be identified and individually analyzed for what concerns geometrical and radiometric properties, backscatterers spatial distribution and the spectral content of the wake components. This paper proposes a method for the automatic detection of the vessel’s motion-related features and their exploitation to provide an estimation of the vessel velocity vector. In particular, the ship’s related wake pattern is considered as a crucial target of interest for the purposes mentioned. The corresponding wake detection module has been implemented adopting a novel approach, i.e., by introducing a specifically tailored gradient estimator in the early processing stages. This results in the enhancement of the turbulent wake detection performance. The resulting overall procedure may also be included in marine surveillance systems in charge of detecting illegal maritime traffic, combating unauthorized fishing, irregular migration and related smuggling activities.

Special Issue on “Advanced Technology Related to Radar Signal, Imaging, and Radar Cross-Section Measurement”

“…After a very careful peer-review process, a total of 32 papers were accepted. These works include SAR/ISAR [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], polarimetry [10][11][12], MIMO [13,14], direction of arrival (DOA)/direction of departure (DOD) [13][14][15], sparse sensing [5,14,16], ground-penetrating radar (GPR) [17][18][19], through-wall radar [20,21], coherent integration [22,23], clutter suppression [24,25], and meta-materials, among others [26][27][28][29][30][31]. All of these accepted papers are the latest research results and are expected to be further advanced, applied, and diverted.…”

Remote Sensing for Maritime Prompt Monitoring

“…This final decision is put forward according to the specific arrangement of the detected linear segments. Further details may be found in [57]. In the case of a positive detection, the corresponding wake pattern is identified and its relevant features are employed to estimate route and velocity parameters of the ship.…”

Towards Automatic Recognition of Wakes Generated by Dark Vessels in Sentinel-1 Images

“…The interest in the space-based images for maritime surveillance has strongly increased, owing to the increased number of the optical and radar satellites, especially in the last decade. Concerning this, several techniques, tools, and projects have been developed to improve the maritime domain awareness [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9].…”