Developments in Maritime Surveillance Systems and Technology

By Tony Kingham, Editor, Border Security Report

Securing our maritime borders is undoubtedly the most complex and difficult challenge faced by any agency tasked with the responsibility.

Firstly, our seas and oceans are often difficult and dangerous environments in which to live and work and simply maintaining a human presence at sea takes its toll on vessels, equipment and the people needed to operate them.

Then of course there are the thousands and thousands of kilometres of coastline and millions of square kilometres of seas and oceans to be surveilled and patrolled.

So of course, it’s not surprising given the difficulty of securing maritime borders that bad actors are going to use these historic superhighways to trade in drugs, weapons, illicit goods and as well as human beings.

Until relatively recently all the advantages were held by the traffickers. They could hide their contraband in plain sight by smuggling a cargo in vessels such as commercial freighters, fishing boats, yachts and pleasure craft, relying on their apparent innocence and the sheer volume of traffic to be checked, to get their cargo into a target country. Or they could use the covert approach, utilising high speed craft, such as ribs, jet skis, and more recently, drones and submersibles to unload their cargo in some remote location, away from the authorities and prying eyes.

They always had advantage of choosing when, where, and how, leaving the authorities to be reactive and cover all possible routes in, with limited resources. And when you have to be everywhere, you are strong nowhere!

But technology promises to shift the balance measurably in favour of the law enforcement, probably for the first time in the history of smuggling.

Satellites
Satellites both for communication and earth observation surveillance are among the most significant developments.

Communication satellite constellations like the Musk owned Starlink, makes broadband data communication cheaply available at sea, which means that ground stations, vessels and airborne assets can share operational data in real time.

The Airbus’ Pléiades Neo constellation is already twice daily monitoring vast tracks of the ocean and littoral, able to track and monitor vessel movements and spot anomalies like commercial vessels trying to avoid detection by disabling their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders.

Starlinks stablemate, SpaceX Starshield low orbit satellites are promising to be equally disruptive in the earth observation market, offering target tracking, optical and radio reconnaissance at very affordable cost. With SpaceX said to be planning to deploy thousands of Starshield satellites, providing the kind of blanket coverage we already get from Starlink, could mean that 24/7 over the horizon observation becomes a reality.

Unmanned Systems
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones are already part of the modern maritime surveillance network but are set to play an ever-larger role in securing our maritime and coastal domains.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (US CBP) have led the way operating a maritime variant of the military grade MQ-9 Predator B Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) called the Guardian.

In Europe, Frontex (European Border and Coast Guard Agency) employs a variety of drones to enhance border surveillance and maritime patrol operations. In January, Frontex signed a new 184-million-euro framework contract for long-range drones, under which it has renewed a contract with Airbus to operate Heron 1 (from IAI).

The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) contracted Schiebel to support multi-purpose maritime operations with its Unmanned Air System (UAS) CAMCOPTER® on a wide variety of missions in the seas all around Europe.

And in the English Channel, UK Border Force operate Tekever Drones and Thales Watchkeeper WK450 to detect illegal crossings.
Drones, whether they are long endurance fixed wing, rotary drones ideal for operating from vessels at sea, or tethered drones operating from just about anywhere, really do offer beyond the horizon capability.

Systems
Modern radars large or small are more capable than ever, able of detecting even inflatables and wooden craft. The small size of some systems like the Echodyne’s MESA® means that they themselves can be fitted to small fast vessels like ribs, making interdiction that much more effective.

Electro-optic and thermal imaging systems like the Teledyne’s SeaFLIR® 240-EP advanced maritime surveillance system leverages a number of technology enhancements, such as the ability to support Aided Target Recognition (AiTR) via FLIR’s neural network target classifier.

Sonar technologies with wideband systems offer high-resolution imaging, improving the detection of underwater objects and potential threats. Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) technology provides detailed three-dimensional images of the seafloor, aiding in the identification of illicit activities like under water drug cache’ and canisters (so called torpedoes) welded to ships hulls.

Autonomous Mobile Surveillance Towers
Portable, solar-powered surveillance towers have changed the way border agencies can respond to emerging threats. Equipped with cameras, radar, thermal imaging, and communication antennas, they can operate autonomously, feeding data into centralized systems for real-time analysis. Systems such as DefSecIntel’s Mobile autonomous surveillance platform SurveilSPIRE, with a built-in AI detection software and autonomous energy source, to conduct fully automated operations in different weather conditions. It is lightweight high surveillance platform, which doesn’t require field operators, ideal for rapid deployment to remote coastal locations.

AI and Data Fusion
And of course, no article about future border technology would be complete without talking about AI, Machine Learning and Data Fusion.

Historically, nations have approached maritime surveillance and border security through a hardware, platform-centric procurement model. With each platform having its bespoke operating systems and command and control (C2), meaning that personnel had to be trained to operate each system or specialise. Often systems were not fully integrated, if integrated at all.

But the modern open architecture approach and the development of AI has paved the way for a border security revolution.

Now, companies like Sirius Insight uses a data-driven, software-led, system approach – from maritime domain awareness to maritime domain understanding and autonomous alerting based on big-data sets. Hardware agnostic, data is extracted from existing infrastructure and additional appropriate sensors. Data fusion and AI analysis allows nations to adopt emerging technologies quickly, optimising outputs from up-to-date commercial equipment such as satellites, aircraft and UAVs, shore and surface sensors. Using its own web-based portal, INSIGHT™, Sirius is able to deliver the right information, with high-levels of confidence, to decision-makers at the right time.

These technological advancements collectively contribute to more robust and effective maritime border surveillance, addressing the evolving challenges posed by illicit activities at sea.