Undersea Cable Research Articles

India’s emerging undersea cable landscape: Varied Indo-Pacific partnerships to boost geopolitical ambitions?

India is set to be a cradle for undersea cable networks thanks to its geographical location, fast-growing economy, its potential to play a bigger role in global manufacturing, and its young, technologically skilled workforce. But amongst the tech giants such as the US and its allies, does India have the capabilities and the political intent to thwart China’s technological, and military disruption attempts in the Indo-Pacific? This article argues for enhanced maritime cooperation between like-minded states to improve interoperability between states and create a viable maritime security architecture that includes subsea cable security. It suggests that India can tamp down China’s growing influence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) by asserting Indian digital ascendance and by making full use of its multi-aligned “pointed” diplomacy with like-minded partners. To substantiate this approach, this article first defines the contours of India’s “pointed” diplomatic strategy and then discusses why India is crucial for the growing undersea cable network security in the IOR. Outlining India’s nascent attempts to create a relevant domestic regulatory framework on undersea cables, it explores India’s pointed diplomacy via its engagements with select partnerships, such as with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) members and IOR littorals, among others.

Undersea cable security in the Indo‐Pacific: Enhancing the Quad’s collaborative approach

Undersea communication cables carry the bulk of global communications, intelligence, and financial transactions daily. They are increasingly threatened, and Australia, Japan, India, and the US have begun coordinating cable security activities in the Indo-Pacific as the Quad. This article investigates the Quad’s role in undersea cable communication security, and analyzes its motivations, strengths, and the challenges it faces thereby illuminating the Quad’s evolving position in international security and its role in global governance. In doing so, it evaluates the Quad’s significance in addressing emerging security threats in the Indo-Pacific, attempts to fill critical gaps in policy formulation, and contributes to theories of informality and global governance. It begins by outlining threats to undersea communication cables. Second, it details the Quad Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience within the context of an informal intergovernmental organization literature. Third, it provides recommendations for policy formulation in undersea cable security and explores the Quad's potential for improving connectivity, resilience, and security. Finally, the article emphasizes the need to tailor policies to India’s unique position within the Quad and explores proactive measures like floating Quad-supported cable repair ships. These recommendations offer insights for policymakers to bolster global communication infrastructure, resilience, and provide public goods amidst multipolarity and great power rivalry.

Design of Underwater Cables Applicable to Submarine(KSS-III Batch-II) Navigation Radar

Since the creation of the first submarine telegraph cable connecting England and France in 1850, today, due to the rapid development of the Internet and Communications fields, the demand for submarine communication cables has increased and continues to develop. Submarine cables are designed and manufactured to be suitable for the maritime environment, and many parts are imported from overseas, and several domestic cable manufacturers are producing them for commercial purposes. Field-proven and reliable commercial submarine communication cable technology is also being applied to the military field, and is especially actively utilized in naval surface ships and submarines. This paper is about the design of an underwater cable applicable to submarine(KSS-III Bach-II) navigation radar and also is to secure the performance of an underwater cable with bending durability in extreme marine environments, emergency diving, and repeated mast raising and lowering. Finally, we hop that the domestic development of underwater cables will help improve the performance of navigation radars for submarines.

TopoHub: Synthetic global-scale backbone networks topologies

This article introduces the latest features and enhancements in TopoHub, an open repository for network topologies used in networking research. The major update includes a new collection of global-scale backbone topologies, generated based on population density and incorporating submarine communication cables. The web interface has been upgraded to support interactive exploration of networks, including panning and zooming. Additionally, the new version addresses usability improvements and bug fixes informed by user feedback, enhancing the overall functionality and user experience of the platform.

Submarine Communication Cables and Belligerent Rights in Armed Conflict

Abstract This article takes up the significant yet understudied issue of belligerent rights regarding submarine communication cables in armed conflict. The article takes up three key questions that have persistently evaded clarity. First, what actually is the law applicable to cables in wartime? Second, how is this law to be applied in practice? And third, is it fit for purpose? The article concludes that, as a matter of lex lata, no lex specialis rules have emerged specific to the protection of submarine cables in armed conflict, either in treaty or customary international law. However, this does not MEAn that belligerents are free to target submarine cables in times of armed conflict. Instead, important international law constraints are to be found in general IHL principles, the law of neutrality, and law of the sea protections that persist in times of armed conflict. Applied to the technical configurations of submarine cables as currently deployed and used, it is far from clear that these rules and principles permit the targeting of submarine cables in wartime.

A Hop Away from Everywhere: A View of the Intercontinental Long-haul Infrastructure

We present a longitudinal study of intercontinental long-haul links (LHL) - links with latencies significantly higher than that of all other links in a traceroute path. Our study is motivated by the recognition of these LHLs as a network-layer manifestation of transoceanic undersea cables. We present a methodology and associated processing system for identifying long-haul links in traceroute measurements, and report on our findings from. We apply this system to a large corpus of traceroute data and report on multiple aspects of long haul connectivity including country-level prevalence, routers as international gateways, preferred long-haul destinations, and the evolution of these characteristics over a 7 year period.

Capital is Dead. Long Live Capital! A Political Marxist Analysis of Digital Capitalism and Infrastructure

There is a growing literature suggesting that the digital economy is taking us out of capitalism. While this manifests most notably as a diagnosis of ‘digital feudalism’ or ‘techno-feudalism’, a differing voice is McKenzie Wark, who suggests we have entered an entirely new mode of production altogether: ‘vectoralism’. This paper historicises and theorises our current conjuncture in relation to the potential multiplicity of modes of production, and the materiality and imperialism of telecommunication infrastructures. We approve of Wark's development of new concepts, rather than turning to ahistorical regurgitations like ‘neo-feudalism’. However, we argue that the mode of production lens is not adequate to trace what we consider as more granular changes and that it risks packaging old wine in new bottles. For example, Wark's vectoral claims remain grounded in infrastructures such as undersea cables that are used by corporations and states as strategies of legal and economic imperialism reminiscent of the 19th century world order. Instead of examining this topic through a mode of production lens, we contend that these phenomena are better traced through a processual (rather than functional) and socially determined (rather than economically determined) method of historical materialism. In this regard, we adopt an approach closer to that of E. P. Thompson and Political Marxists, such as Brenner and Wood. To support our argument, we turn to both wider Marxist theory on the mode of production, which we then anchor in empirical works from contemporary critical infrastructure and communication studies.

Undersea cables in Africa: The new frontiers of digital colonialism

The Internet has become the backbone of the social fabric. The United Nations Human Rights Council declared access to the Internet a fundamental human right over a decade ago. Yet, Africa remains the region with the widest Digital Divide where most of the population is either sparsely connected or has no access to the Internet. This has in turn created a race amongst Western big tech corporations scrambling to “bridge the Digital Divide”. Although the Internet is often portrayed as something that resides in the “cloud”, it heavily depends on physical infrastructure, including undersea cables. In this paper, we examine how current undersea cable projects and Internet infrastructure, owned, controlled, and managed by private Western big tech corporation, often using the “bridging the Digital Divide” rhetoric, not only replicates colonial logic but also follows the same infrastructural path laid during the trans-Atlantic slave trade era. Despite its significant impact on the continent’s digital infrastructure, we find publicly available information is scarce and undersea cable projects are carried out with no oversight and little transparency. We review historical evolution of the Internet, and detail and track the development of undersea cables in Africa, and illustrate its tight connection with colonial legacies. We provide an in-depth analysis of two current major undersea cable undertakings across the continent: Google’s Equiano and Meta’s 2Africa. Using Google and Meta’s undersea cables as case studies, we illustrate how these projects follow colonial logic, create a new cost model that keep African nations under perpetual debt, and serve as infrastructure for mass data harvesting while bringing little benefit to the Global South. We conclude with actionable recommendations for and demands from big tech corporations, regulatory bodies, and governments across the African continent.

SEATANI: hazards from seamounts in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands (eastern India)

Abstract. Submarine volcanism makes up approximately 85 % of volcanism that occurs on Earth, and its eruptions have the potential to cause several hazards including ash dispersal, pumice rafts, pyroclastic density currents, sector collapses, and tsunamis. Recent examples include the eruptions in Japan and in the Kingdom of Tonga in 2021 and 2022 respectively, but there has been little to no study of submarine volcanism in Southeast Asia and surroundings. Here we provide a compilation of 466 seamounts from the region, from different published sources, through the SEATANI dataset (Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands). We use this newly compiled dataset to assess on a regional level the seamount hazard potential and exposure potential as a springboard for future more quantitative hazard studies of the region. The hazard potential was assessed through seamount morphological and structural analyses, to determine the seamount evolution stage and grade of maturity. The exposure potential was evaluated with two different approaches: an areal analysis of the number of assets within a 100 km radius of each seamount and the development of a hazard-weighted seamount density map to highlight potential areas of interest for future more-in-depth studies. Our results show that there are several potentially hazardous seamounts in this region. Taiwan has the highest hazard and exposure potential, for all assets considered, while the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam have relatively high exposure potential for submarine communication cables and ship traffic density. The results from this work serve as a first step towards Southeast Asia and neighbouring countries becoming more resilient against and prepared for submarine volcanic eruptions in the region.

Spatial Spillover of the Global Internet Penetration Rate and the Digital Gender Divide

This study investigated the possible contributing factors to the digital gender divide and the spatial spillover effects of submarine communication cables on neighboring areas. Using spatial statistical models and global data, this study examined the Internet penetration rate and the digital gender divide in 186 countries. Data sources included open source data, social media, ITU and UNCTAD databases, and the World Bank. The study estimated the average male and female Internet users in 186 countries using Facebook API. The number of submarine communication cables between countries was used as the basis for constructing the spatial weights matrix. The countries with the highest Internet penetration rate were mostly in Europe. Those with the lowest Internet penetration rate were in Africa, Central Asia, and West Asia. Thirteen of the 15 countries with the worst Internet penetration rate were located in the African region. A significant digital gender divide arose in the developing and the least-developed countries. We argue that connectivity is key to the reduction of the digital gender divide and to ensuring that more women have access to the Internet. The study ascertains that the Internet penetration rate is related to the digital gender divide in individual countries and has a spatial spillover impact in surrounding nations connected by submarine communication cables. The study demonstrates that submarine cables serve as important infrastructure for closing the digital gender divide and deserve increased analytical attention.

Submarine Infrastructures and the International Legal Framework

The purpose of this paper is to identify weaknesses in the international framework for the protection of submarine cables beyond the sovereign waters of coastal States. To illustrate this, the paper uses a hypothetical case study of what a possible attack on a submarine cable may look like. First, it provides an overview over the applicable framework, with a particular focus on international peacekeeping law (ius contra bellum), the law of the sea, protection against piracy, and criminal prosecution under national criminal law. Various international conventions play a key role in relation to submarine cables. Particularly relevant are the Convention on Submarine Telegraph Cables of 1884, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982, as well as the peacekeeping regulations of the United Nations Charter of 1949. After outlining the legal framework using the classical methods of treaty interpretation, as well as taking the scholarly literature on this subject into account, the example is subsumed under the various means of protection under international law. The peacekeeping law of the United Nations turns out to be ineffective because, on the one hand, an attack as described in the reference scenario does not necessarily constitute an armed attack in the sense of the UN Charter and therefore cannot be met with military countermeasures. On the other hand, an authorisation by the Security Council cannot be given quickly enough to counter the attack militarily. In addition to that, measures taken in the framework of the Law of the Sea Convention are ineffective due to the exclusive flag State jurisdiction which precludes other States from acting in this matter. An exception to this principle, namely universal jurisdiction to combat piracy, is unlikely to be applied in the context of an attack against a submarine cable. Finally, as result of the exclusive jurisdiction of the flag State and the poor implementation of the international obligations under the Law of the Sea Convention, national criminal law is also inadequate as a repressive means of protection.

The Recent Progresses of Electrodes and Electrolysers for Seawater Electrolysis

The utilization of renewable energy for hydrogen production presents a promising pathway towards achieving carbon neutrality in energy consumption. Water electrolysis, utilizing pure water, has proven to be a robust technology for clean hydrogen production. Recently, seawater electrolysis has emerged as an attractive alternative due to the limitations of deep-sea regions imposed by the transmission capacity of long-distance undersea cables. However, seawater electrolysis faces several challenges, including the slow kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the competing chlorine evolution reaction (CER) processes, electrode degradation caused by chloride ions, and the formation of precipitates on the cathode. The electrode and catalyst materials are corroded by the Cl− under long-term operations. Numerous efforts have been made to address these issues arising from impurities in the seawater. This review focuses on recent progress in developing high-performance electrodes and electrolyser designs for efficient seawater electrolysis. Its aim is to provide a systematic and insightful introduction and discussion on seawater electrolysers and electrodes with the hope of promoting the utilization of offshore renewable energy sources through seawater electrolysis.

19. YÜZYILDA DOĞU AKDENİZ’DEN HİNT OKYANUSUNA ULUSLARARASI DENİZALTI TELEGRAF HABERLEŞMESİ: İNGİLİZ ARŞİV BELGELERİNE GÖRE

ABSTRACT
 The telegraph is a good example of the concretization of scientific and technical developments, which have been increasing since the beginning of the 19th century, and their transformation into technological devices. Thanks to the invention of the telegraph, communication over long distances became possible for short periods. Telegraph lines, which previously ran across the continents via copper cables laid on poles erected on the ground, provided the opportunity for communication on lands and under seas, with the addition of underwater telegraph lines to these lines in a short time, in parallel with technological transitions. However, the development and regular maintenance of the lines were vital to the global communication network. By the 1850s, a strong communication network consisting of telegraph lines and hundreds of telegraph stations had been established in many European countries such as England, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, with telegraph lines of over 4000 km. This infrastructure, which was used effectively in both world wars, starting from the Crimean War, also formed the basis of military communication. Industrialized countries such as Great Britain have dramatically increased their influence in the world by using these technological developments, thus gaining a great military, political, and economic advantage by directing the logistical support provided by communication to the real political field. The brilliant ideas developed on telegraphy during this time would be very important for today's digital communication infrastructure.
 In this context, in our study, using British and Ottoman archive documents, we tried to reveal, in parallel with the technological development of telegraphy, scientific studies carried out to lay telegraph lines under seas, established submarine telegraph companies, and their activities, the process of laying submarine telegraph lines in the areas from the Eastern Mediterranean basin to the Indian Ocean and Australia during the 19th century and finally how this communication network infrastructure contributed to the construction of the contemporary today's world.
 Key Words: Submarine Telegraph Systems, Submarine Telegraph Companies, International Communication, Eastern Mediterranean, Late Ottoman Period

Penegakan Hukum Terhadap Pelaku Tindak Pidana Perusakan Kabel Bawah Laut Di Wilayah Hukum Polres Tanjung Jabung Barat Berdasarkan Uu No. 36 Tahun 1999 Tentang Telekomunikasi (Studi Kasus: Putusan Nomor 36/Pid.Sus/2023/PNKlt)

Underwater cables refer to all types of cables laid on the surface of the seabed, undersea cables have now developed into a Sea Cable Communication System (SKKL) thatare interconnected and mutually supportive. Underwater communication cables are cables laid under the sea to connect telecommunications between countries. The disconnection of the underwater cable communication network also occurred in the waters of the Pengabuan River, West Tanjung Jabung Regency. In this case the Tanjung Jabung Barat Resort Police, which is the jurisdiction of the incident, received a report and quickly carried out the law enforcement process, especially since this incident was the first time this had happened in the jurisdiction of the West Tanjung Jabung Police. As a result of the disconnection of the underwater cable network, it causes electromagnetic disturbances in the form of blackouts or interrupted communication networks. The purpose of this study is to understand and analyze how law enforcement is against the perpetrators of the criminal act of destroying undersea cables in the jurisdiction of the West Tanjung Jabung Police based on Law no. 36 of 1999 concerning Telecommunications (Case Study: Decision Number 36 /Pid.Sus /2023 /PN KLT), to understand and analyze the factors that become obstacles, and to understand and analyze the efforts made in overcoming existing obstacles. The research method used is empirical juridical. The results showed that in this case the Captain of the Ship, TB. DABO 103 is an element that is proven to have caused the interruption of the underwater fiber optic network in the waters of the Pengabuan Estuary, due to its negligence resulting in a violation of the provisions of Article 322 Jo Article 216 paragraph (1) of the Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 17 of 2008 concerning Shipping whichreads"The skipper who carriesout repair activities, trial sailing, loading transfer activities at the port pool, delays, and loading and unloading of dangerous goods without the approval of the Syahbandar as referred to in Article 216 paragraph (1) shall be punished with imprisonment for a maximum of 6 (six) months or a fine 100,000,000.00 (one hundred million rupiah) at the most." For his negligence, the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment for 5 (five) months, because he was proven to have violated the provisions of Article 322 Jo Article 216 paragraph (1) of the Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 17 of 2008 concerning Shipping, namely carrying out repair activities without the approval of Syahbandar. From the results of the research carried out, the suggestions given are that it is necessary to make ongoing appeals to captains to complete navigation tools in the form of BPI Pushidrosal Maps (Indonesian Seafarers' News) and the latest Marine Maps which serve to explain the latest situations and conditions in the waters and also which can explain the existence of the position of items under the sea including undersea cables so that similar incidents do not happen again.

A Hop Away from Everywhere: A View of the Intercontinental Long-haul Infrastructure

We present a longitudinal study of intercontinental long-haul links (LHLs) - links with latencies significantly higher than that of all other links in a traceroute path. Our study is motivated by the recognition of these LHLs as a network-layer manifestation of critical transoceanic undersea cables. We present a methodology and associated processing system for identifying long-haul links in traceroute measurements. We apply this system to a large corpus of traceroute data and report on multiple aspects of long haul connectivity including country-level prevalence, routers as international gateways, preferred long-haul destinations, and the evolution of these characteristics over a 7 year period. We identify 85,620 layer-3 links (out of 2.7M links in a large traceroute dataset) that satisfy our definition for intercontinental long haul with many of them terminating in a relatively small number of nodes. An analysis of connected components shows a clearly dominant component with a relative size that remains stable despite a significant growth of the long-haul infrastructure.

RUSSIAN THREATS TO THE SUBMARINE INTERNET CABLE INFRASTRUCTURE

The article outlines the importance of undersea communication cables, an under-researched andoften underappreciated element of modern geopolitics, security and Internet resilience.The purpose of the article is to analyse the increased Russian naval activity in recent years arounddeep-sea cables, the critical infrastructure of the global Internet, which has the potential to disruptthe daily life of the West as Russia seeks new means of influencing the West during the war againstUkraine.As there is currently not yet enough scientific research on the topic, the article uses newspaperanalytical materials and various reports in addition to scientific articles. Given the nature andpurpose of the considerations, the assumption was made to use a diverse research methodology,at the basis of which were the following methods: historical, institutional-legal, monographic anddocument analysis.The conclusion of the article is that, as the world is heavily dependent on undersea cablesthat carry Internet traffic around the world, the Russian Federation will continue to threateninformation systems, and their damage may not only adversely affect the state of intercontinentalcommunications, but also worsen the geopolitical situation on a global scale.

Recording the Magnetic Field Produced by an Undersea Energy Generating Device: A Low-Cost Alternative

This work describes the characteristics of a device capable of detecting the magnetic field generated by a submerged electrical conductor. This low-cost apparatus is based on the open-source Arduino platform and offers the possibility of monitoring magnetic fields generated by undersea cables. Measuring magnetic fields generated by undersea cables facilitates the development of technologies that will harness marine energy potential. The research is based on published parameters of magnetic field values generated by existing submarine cables. A coil was built to simulate an approximate magnetic field at 10 mT. The magnetic field generated by the coil was used as a reference standard. The device developed has a measurement probe built with an array of SS49E Hall effect sensors placed in a straight line and separated 5 cm from each other. A DS18B20 temperature sensor was added to make the necessary corrections and cancel the influence of temperature during the measurements. A microSD card module was attached to store continuous magnetic field measurements. The device was adjusted under strict laboratory conditions. The functionality of the device developed was confirmed by two samplings in the sea. In these samples, the magnetic field generated by the coil was measured in the entire water column from a depth of 3 m to 150 m. Results indicate that the prototype can successfully perform the necessary functions to quantify the underwater magnetic field accurately with about 10 µT accuracy.

Assembly Codes: The Logistics of Media ed. by Matthew Hockenberry, Nicole Starosielski, and Susan Zieger

Reviewed by: Assembly Codes: The Logistics of Media ed. by Matthew Hockenberry, Nicole Starosielski, and Susan Zieger Noah Arceneaux (bio) Assembly Codes: The Logistics of Media Edited by Matthew Hockenberry, Nicole Starosielski, and Susan Zieger. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021. Pp. xii + 258. This anthology feels like an eclectic, overcrowded academic panel. There is a theme, indeed even a compelling one, for which a few key chapters are perfectly aligned. Some other essays are tangentially connected, while others are connected only on an impossibly broad conceptual level. And, like a conference presentation, some of the works offer nuggets of insight rather than fully realized academic projects. John Durham Peters describes the collection in a foreword as a "refreshing counter-blast to the ethereal narrative" of modern media (p. vii). In contrast to hyperbolic rhetoric and public fascination with cloud computing and ubiquitous online access, this collection explores the intersection of media systems and the infrastructure that makes content creation, distribution, and mass consumption possible. In the formal introduction, the editors emphasize that historians of the military and capitalism first recognized the importance of logistics for the circulation of resources, with scholars in other fields then adopting the focus. A school of "critical logistical studies" formed, and this book claims to be the first collection to apply this lens to the study of media industries, which circulate physical goods and ideas on a global scale. The authors draw from a range of previous scholars, with the works of Paul Virilio and Anna Tsing cited frequently. The collection's theme is exemplified in the third part, titled "Supply Chain Media." Michael Palm documents the revival of vinyl records and the reliance on the postal system and specialized software that unite seller [End Page 604] and buyer, while also acknowledging the ecological impact of this industry. Nicole Starosielski focuses on the network of undersea cables that make global internet traffic possible. A handful of companies with ties to particular nations dominate this field, a legacy of the colonial, imperial era of the past. There are, however, several historical works on geopolitics and telecommunications, including the work of Dwayne Winseck, not referenced in this chapter. In one of the most compelling chapters, Kay Dickinson connects the decentralized, exploitative nature of modern film production with the state of higher education, which has its own cadre of underpaid adjuncts. Dickinson challenges instructors to instill some political consciousness into their students while simultaneously giving them the necessary skills for employment in the world of film. Another compelling chapter is Matthew Hockenberry's, which connects the latest generation of voice-activated computer programs, including Siri, to original visions of the telephone as an instrument to optimize efficiency. The connection between the ostensible theme of the collection and a few of the other essays is less clear, including four focused on the Atlantic slave trade. This horrific phase in world history was most certainly a grand act of logistics, albeit one for nefarious ends, though it is not immediately clear what these respective works illuminate about contemporary media industries. Susan Zieger's analysis of slave ships, for example, performs a close reading of the "bills of lading" for such vessels to find evidence for the tragic loss of life that occurred during the passage from Africa. But to view these paper documents as "logistical media," as the essay does, suggests a category of evidence so broad that it threatens to lose its value. Another chapter about the movement to repatriate African Americans to Ghana seems even more detached from the anthology's focus. Shannon Mattern's essay advocates for scholars to devote attention to the sounds created by different systems for regulating logistics, from bells to work songs to the beeps of RFID tags. This is an intriguing proposition and relates to the growing field of sound studies, though it is more a provocation than a full explication of exactly what new insights this aural evidence might reveal. Starosielski's work on undersea cables has a similar quality, in that it suggests more questions than answers. The analogy between this anthology and an eclectic conference panel is not intended as a slight, as indeed the serendipitous jumbling of topics...

Using distributed acoustic sensing for ocean ambient sound analysis

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a technique that utilizes the back scattering in fiber optic cables to densely sample the strain rate in both space and time. This technique has been widely demonstrated as a powerful tool for seismic sensing, but the efficacy of submerged, under-sea cables for ocean acoustic sensing remains underexplored. The ocean observatories initiative (OOI) conducted a distributed acoustic sensing experiment in November of 2021, where two of the fiber optic cables continuously recorded the strain rate for four days. In this talk, the ambient sound field recorded by the OOI DAS experiment will be explored. A statistical comparison of hydrophone measurements and DAS measurements will be presented. Additionally, the possibility of using ocean ambient sound techniques, such as ambient noise interferometry will be explored and compared to hydrophone analysis. [Work supported by ONR.]

BATMAN: A Brain-like Approach for Tracking Maritime Activity and Nuance

As commercial geospatial intelligence data becomes more widely available, algorithms using artificial intelligence need to be created to analyze it. Maritime traffic is annually increasing in volume, and with it the number of anomalous events that might be of interest to law enforcement agencies, governments, and militaries. This work proposes a data fusion pipeline that uses a mixture of artificial intelligence and traditional algorithms to identify ships at sea and classify their behavior. A fusion process of visual spectrum satellite imagery and automatic identification system (AIS) data was used to identify ships. Further, this fused data was further integrated with additional information about the ship's environment to help classify each ship's behavior to a meaningful degree. This type of contextual information included things such as exclusive economic zone boundaries, locations of pipelines and undersea cables, and the local weather. Behaviors such as illegal fishing, trans-shipment, and spoofing are identified by the framework using freely or cheaply accessible data from places such as Google Earth, the United States Coast Guard, etc. The pipeline is the first of its kind to go beyond the typical ship identification process to help aid analysts in identifying tangible behaviors and reducing the human workload.