Abstract
In order to provide a constant and complete operational picture of the maritime situation in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) at over the horizon (OTH) distances, a network of high frequency surface-wave-radars (HFSWR) slowly becomes a necessity. Since each HFSWR in the network tracks all the targets it detects independently of other radars in the network, there will be situations where multiple tracks are formed for a single vessel. The algorithm proposed in this paper utilizes radar tracks obtained from individual HFSWRs which are already processed by the multi-target tracking algorithm at the single radar level, and fuses them into a unique data stream. In this way, the data obtained from multiple HFSWRs originating from the very same target are weighted and combined into a single track. Moreover, the weighting approach significantly reduces inaccuracy. The algorithm is designed, implemented, and tested in a real working environment. The testing environment is located in the Gulf of Guinea and includes a network of two HFSWRs. In order to validate the algorithm outputs, the position of the vessels was calculated by the algorithm and compared with the positions obtained from several coastal sites, with LAIS receivers and SAIS data provided by a SAIS provider.
Highlights
In recent years, organized crime in the maritime arena committed away from territorial waters practically flourished, threatening both the secure flow of goods from the Exclusive Economic Zones [1] (EEZ) and the lives of the participants in marine traffic
Since the price of the high frequency surface-wave-radars (HFSWR) radar network is significantly lower than the combined cost of the aforementioned sensors, and because of the fact that those sensors provide limited data availability throughout the whole year, it is clear why HFSWR networks are slowly becoming the sensors of choice for maritime surveillance at over the horizon (OTH) distances
It is important to note that the long and new tracks are originating from different radars, as otherwise they will not be considered for the fusion process
Summary
In recent years, organized crime in the maritime arena committed away from territorial waters practically flourished, threatening both the secure flow of goods from the Exclusive Economic Zones [1] (EEZ) and the lives of the participants in marine traffic. A single radar tracking algorithm used to pre-process data for the algorithm presented in this paper is described in [13]. Based on a priori tactical knowledge (the maneuverability of the vessels of interest), a simple yet effective way for the data fusion process is chosen. This data fusion process relies on the weighted minimum mean square error (MMSE) for vessel position calculations and the Thiel–San estimator for the tracking process. We will use data which is confirmed to be reliable in order to analyze some interesting cases during the HFSWR data fusion process.
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