Remote Sensing for Maritime Monitoring and Vessel Characterization

The main objective of the work described here concerns the development of automatic ICT procedures in charge of processing imagery data captured by satellite-borne sensors to assess the status of a given maritime area. The mentioned assessment may refer to the detection and identification of peculiar objects, such as oil leaks or, in case of maritime traffic control, the recognition of navigating vessels. This paper specifically focuses on the development of methods for estimating the kinematics of a navigating vessel through the detection and analysis, in the 2D satellite imagery, of the corresponding wake pattern. The proposed method differentiates from those retrieved in previous literature for the introduction of a novel preprocessing stage, which allows for an enhancement in the overall performance of the wake detector. The resulting procedure represents a key functionality to be included in platforms dedicated to sea surveillance.