An information system for ship detection and identification

We have since last year been designing a ship detection and identification system (SDIS) which aims to contribute to the mitigation of maritime issues that have been increasing in recent years. SDIS will integrate many existing data sources which are readily available either commercially or through partnerships with governmental organizations including AIS, S-AIS, VMS/LRIT, satellite imagery, acoustic underwater and electric field detector, and ship based and coastal radar. Typical users of an SDIS include commercial and governmental organizations which raises proprietary and regional security issues; therefore, data security is being considered at all stages of the data lifecycle including ingestion, storage, in-application use and transmission of results in order to protect against accidental or malicious compromises to the system. We are proposing an extensible system architecture which allows for adaptation to evolving user requirements, input data changes, and ship detection and identification algorithm improvements. This paper describes the initial phases of our SDIS development and our plans for future development.