Naval asymetric threats and piracy acts: Study of a new IR detection module

The latest events of naval piracy acts against commercial ships in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia have revealed a new threat for commercial ships. For military ships, naval asymmetric threats become also a more and more emerging threat to counter. Consequently, the implementation of protecting systems to face these acts (soft kill/hard kill actions according to civilian/military applications and contexts) turns out to be now inevitable. In a near future, commercial ships that are sailing in blue and brown waters in dangerous areas (straits...) will have to possess detection and countering capabilities to face single and multiple coordinated attacks from pirates in different short-range scenarios and environments (open sea, coastal backgrounds...). For military ships, the need is quite similar even if the threat and the dedicated reaction may be quite different (hard kill action if necessary). In this paper, a practical example of a module focused on the surveillance of the neighboring of the ship and its mean to detect and track such naval threats is discussed. The surveillance module presented hereafter is under study at SAGEM Company. The paper puts forward the detection process (image processing and tracking). The module may be combined with other ones to provide the ship with full range and angular coverage in its vicinity. To conclude, results of detection scenarios are provided. Data have been registered during sea trials dedicated to very short range threats. Results highlight how the module detects them. They also put forward how module performances are improved by implementing two specific processes: track fusion and clutter map management.