Remote sensing for maritime monitoring and vessel prompt identification

The main purpose of the work described in this paper concerns the development of a platform dedicated to sea surveillance, capable of detecting and identifying illegal maritime traffic. This platform results from the cascade implementation of several image processing algorithms that take as input Radar or Optical maps captured by satellite-borne sensors. More in detail, the processing chain is dedicated to (i) the detection of vessel targets in the input map, (ii) the refined estimation of the vessel most descriptive geometrical features and, finally, (iii) the estimation of the kinematic status of the vessel. This platform will represent a new tool for combating unauthorized fishing, irregular migration and related smuggling activities.