Surveillance of ships at sea poses particular challenges for spaceborne sensors: small targets need to be detected, wide areas need to be surveyed, and both targets and background are anything but stationary. Incidental, snap-shot images find their application niches – among the existing technologies for ship monitoring – mostly in alerting to the presence of unknown targets and in surveying outlying areas. The main applications in the European seas cover fisheries control, pollution control and maritime border security, although operational use is still sporadic. The sensor of choice is SAR, because it allows ship detection over wide swaths and under many conditions. High-resolution optical sensors can provide additional information on ship classification, which is still difficult for SAR. Their narrow swaths, however, mostly limit their use to predetermined locations. Clutter from the sea surface hinders detection of the smallest ships, especially at high sea state, leading to false alarms and to less than 100% detection probability. For many applications these drawbacks can be kept within acceptable limits by proper choice of the swath width/reso- lution combination. Satellite sensors may also image ship wakes, from which information on ship speed and heading can be gleaned. Crucial to operational use is the ability for automatic analysis. This is relatively well developed for ship detection, and less well for classification and wake analysis, in SAR images, and quite immature for optical images.
Keywords
- Synthetic Aperture Radar
- Synthetic Aperture Radar Image
- Radar Cross Section
- Constant False Alarm Rate
- Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Arnesen TN, Olsen RB (2004) Literature review on vessel detection. FFI/Rapport-2004/02619, ISBN-82-464-0859-3
DECLIMS project (2007) Detection and Classification of Marine Traffic from Space, FP5 contr nr EVG2-CT-2002-20002, 2003-2006, http://declims.jrc.it
Delignon Y, Garello R, Hillion A (1997) Statistical modelling of ocean SAR images. IEE Proc Radar Sonar Navig 144 (6): 348-354
Greidanus H, Clayton P, Indregard M, Staples G, Suzuki N, Vachon P, Wackerman B, Tennvassas T, Mallorquí J, Kourti N, Ringrose R, Melief H (2004) Benchmarking operational SAR ship detection. Proc IEEE Int Geosc Rem Sens Symp IGARSS‘04, Anchorage, Alaska
Greidanus H (2006) Sub-aperture behaviour of SAR signatures of ships. In: Proc IEEE Int Geosc Rem Sens Symp IGARSS‘06, Denver, Colorado
Greidanus H, Kourti N (2006a) Findings of the DECLIMS project - Detection and classification of marine traffic from space. In: SEASAR 2006: Advances in SAR oceanography from ENVISAT and ERS, ESA-ESRIN, Frascati
Greidanus H, Kourti N (2006b) A detailed comparison between radar and optical vessel signatures. In: Proc IEEE Int Geosc Rem Sens Symp IGARSS‘06, Denver, Colorado
Hajduch G, Leilde P, Kerbaol V (2006) Ship detection on ENVISAT ASAR data: results, limitations and perspectives. In: SEASAR 2006: Advances in SAR oceanography from ENVISAT and ERS, ESA-ESRIN, Frascati, Italy
Howell C, Youden J, Lane K, Flett D (2004) Iceberg and ship discrimination with ENVISAT multi-polarization ASAR. In: Proc IEEE Int Geosc Rem Sens Symp IGARSS‘04, Anchorage, Alaska
Kourti N, Shepherd I, Schwartz G, Pavlakis P (2001), Integrating spaceborne SAR imagery into operational systems for fisheries monitoring. Can J Rem Sens 27 (4): 291-305
Kourti N, Shepherd I, Greidanus H, Alvarez M, Aresu E, Bauna T, Chesworth J, Lemoine G, Schwartz G (2005) Integrating remote sensing in fisheries control. Fisheries Management and Ecology 12: 295-307
Lemoine G, Indregard M, Cesena C, Thoorens F, Greidanus H, Dörner H (2006) Evaluation of Vessel Detection System use for monitoring of fisheries activities. In: ICES Ann Sci Conf, Maastricht
Lombardo P, Sciotti M (2001) Segmentation-based technique for ship detection in SAR images. IEE Proc Radar Sonar Navig 148 (3): 147-159
Losekoot M, Schwab P (2005) Operational use of ship detection to combat illegal fishing in the southern Indian Ocean. In: 8th Int’l Conf Rem Sens Marine and Coastal Envir, Halifax, Canada
Lyden JD, Hammond RR, Lyzenga DR, Schuman RA (1988) Synthetic Aperture Radar imaging of surface ship wakes. J Geoph Res 93: 12,293-12,303
Margarit G, Fabregas X, Mallorqui JJ, Broquetas A (2004) Analysis of the limitations of coherent polarimetric decompositions on vessel classification using simulated images. Proc IEEE Int Geosc Rem Sens Symp IGARSS‘04, Anchorage, Alaska
Ouchi K, Tamaki S, Yaguchi H, Iehara M (2004) Ship detection based on coherence images derived from cross correlation of multilook SAR images. IEEE Geosc Rem Sens Lett 1 (3): 184-187
Tello M, López-Martínez C, Mallorqui JJ (2005) A novel algorithm for ship detection in SAR imagery based on the wavelet transform. IEEE Geosc Rem Sens Lett 2 (2): 201-205
Touzi R, Charbonneau FJ, Hawkins RK, Vachon PW (2004) Ship detection and characterization using polarimetric SAR. Can J Rem Sen 30 (3): 552-559.
Vachon PW, Thomas SJ, Cranton J, Edel HR, Henschel MD (2002) Validation of ship detection by the RADARSAT Synthetic Aperture Radar and the Ocean Monitoring Workstation. Can J Rem Sens 26: 200-212
Wackerman CC, Friedman KS, Pichel WG, Clemente-Colόn P, Li X (2001) Automatic detection of ships in RADARSAT-1 SAR imagery, Can J Rem Sens 27 (4): 371-378
Yeremy M, Campbell JWM, Mattar K, Potter T (2001) Ocean surveillance with polarimetric SAR. Can J Rem Sens 27 (4): 328-34
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Greidanus, H. (2008). Satellite Imaging for Maritime Surveillance of the European Seas. In: Barale, V., Gade, M. (eds) Remote Sensing of the European Seas. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6772-3_26
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6772-3_26
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-6771-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-6772-3
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)