Objectives of the service
The objectives of the services developed in the project are:
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Increased Maritime Situational Awareness for any end-users AoI, whether local or global (VAKE Overwatch)
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Increased control and awareness of end-users Vessels/Contacts of Interest (VoIs/CoIs), where verification of reported track and highlights of anomalies (VAKE Pathfinder)
The products being developed in WINDJAMMER will automate the detection and awareness of all vessels for end-users’ AoIs or follow a vessel over a time period, taking the products to a fully operational level.
Users and their needs
The relevant customer segments are government agencies, offshore assets owners and ship insurance with a need for improved vessel activity tracking. Pilot end-users from these target segments are actively invited to provide input and feedback within the project.
Some of the key user needs that will be addressed in the project are:
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Tracking sanctioned vessels
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Large area monitoring of vessels with their trackers off
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Detection of incorrect vessel tracker reporting
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Per-vessel historical behaviour and highlights of anomalies
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Identify and track vessels with their trackers off
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Near-realtime monitoring for large AoIs
The key targeted segments are European agencies and companies looking to augment their Maritime Situational Awareness.
Service/ system concept
VAKE Overwatch (Area Monitoring for Maritime Activity) is a web interface where users can perform live queries for any Area of Interest and an automated report will be delivered with all vessel detections from optical satellite imagery correlated with associated AIS. This enables and includes support for these pilot users to detect any activity within an area, including dark or misreporting vessels.
VAKE Pathfinder (Specific Vessel tracking and intelligence) is a web service that displays a reported vessel track overlapping with all known satellite observations along that track. This enables pilot users to obtain insights when activities deviate from the reported tracks (e.g. spoofing), and functionality built in the Windjammer makes it easier to also search for those vessels in AIS gaps or outages. Moreover, it may allow users to track and receive updates on activity for any vessel contained in a Vessel-of-Interest list.
Space Added Value
The space technology VAKE currently uses as a part of the delivery to customers is Sentinel-2 multispectral imagery (earth observation (EO) instruments), synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) data from Sentinel-1 and High Resolutions Optical Imagery (HRI) from Planet as well as satellite AIS data to perform correlations and dark vessel alerts. VAKE is in dialogue with multiple HRI providers, to expand our coverage and revisit time.
The processing results of the image sources integrated through this project are planned to be used as a part of the product development and operationalization proposed in this project. Over time, VAKE will also investigate the combination with other satellite data sources (such as RF detections) to strengthen customers’ Maritime Domain Awareness further.
Requests for Planet Labs data within the products may also be provided upon request from users.
Current Status
The WINDJAMMER services are currently accessible for interested organisations, agencies or industry partners that are keen to join as pilot users. The relevant services are VAKE Pathfinder (Vessel of Interest tracking and intelligence) and VAKE Overwatch (Maritime Activity Monitoring with an Area of Interest) services to determine the effect this would have in increasing their Maritime Situational Awareness. If you are interested in joining, please do reach out to connect@vake.ai to get a brief introduction and obtain your login credentials to the platform.
Prime Contractor(s)
