Remote Sensing for Maritime Monitoring and Vessel Identification

Dear Colleagues,

According to the statistics published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the total fleet worldwide consisted of more than 2 × 10⁹ deadweight tons by 2021, against less than 7 × 10⁸ in 1980. This increase in tonnage, and the total number of merchant ships, makes marine traffic surveillance essential for border control, monitoring of illegal activities as well as general security and emergency management. Wherever and whenever the collaborative vessel traffic services are not operational, or some vessel is suspected of sending falsified messages, remote sensing is the only possibility to properly ensure safety and security and take the appropriate reactions/countermeasures for any targeted event. Currently, this is still an open problem, even though many technologies and platforms are available for detecting and locating even the faintest objects on the sea surface, ranging from optics in various bands to radio/acoustic waves, and from satellite to underwater platforms. Besides detection and location, however, classification/identification and behavior analysis are also essential to deploy an effective monitoring system potentially insensitive to the collaborative status of the vessels transiting the surveilled area. The most advanced information technologies are needed to reach this goal, leveraging as much information as possible from as many useful sources as possible, including multi-platform sensors of any kind, and possible data from collaborative identification systems such as AIS, as well as relevant geographical and historical data. Apparently, pattern recognition, image analysis, statistical signal processing, classification, machine learning/deep learning and data science are the enabling technologies to equip detection and location results with the additional information that enables the surveillance authorities to be aware of any possible situation.

The aim of this Special Issue is to gather a number of papers from researchers active in this field, able to give the reader a comprehensive panorama of theory and practice or remote-sensing applications/systems dedicated to maritime surveillance.

Original submissions are welcome dealing with both theoretical and application aspects of the following list of topics.

• Platforms
  • Spaceborne
  • Airborne
  • Surface
  • Underwater
• Sensors
  • Optical – panchromatic, multi/hyperspectral
  • Thermal infrared
  • Radar
  • Acoustic
• Data processing
  • Detection
  • Classification – identification
  • Behavior analysis (speed, bearing, possible anomalies)
  • Tracking
  • Route prediction
  • Data fusion with auxiliary data from collaborative systems
  • Data fusion with geographical/historical data

Dr. Emanuele Salerno
Dr. Claudio Di Paola
Dr. Angelica Lo Duca
Guest Editors

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