MARINE-LIFE PROTECTION
Every ship over a certain size is required to carry a radio tracking system by international maritime law. This device is called an AIS transponder. It transmits information about the ship's identity, position, course, and speed, which can be picked up by satellites. Although primarily for shipping safety, it has also been widely used to help countries monitor vessels and manage their borders.
Sometimes vessels turn off their tracking transponder or go “dark”. This is in violation of international regulations and can mean a ship is up to no good. So how do we know what these dark vessels are doing while off-grid? That’s where Starboard’s tech is changing the game.
Starboard’s Head of Product and Design, Andy Hovey is demonstrating the software. We’re looking at an onscreen map of the Eastern Pacific Ocean crisscrossed with lines and dotted with little markers.
Andy explains: “Anywhere there are dots, that's where a vessel has an AIS transponder that is transmitting a signal, it tells us a vessel is there. Those AIS signals are collected by a constellation of satellites and displayed in Starboard in near real-time. The lines show where the vessel has been. The shaded trapezoid represents an area of ocean another type of satellite has passed over. The sensor on this satellite is picking up radio frequency emissions from the ship’s radars. In this area, anywhere there are white squares are where there is a match between the sensors on these two satellites. Anywhere there are red dots, those are vessels we detect from their radar emissions that are not reporting their location on AIS.”
Starboard’s software uses a clever combination of satellite data from several sources – AIS, navigational radar emissions, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and visual imagery – to find dark vessels. “There's a huge growth in satellite data, and we always use the most appropriate data source for the problem at hand. Sometimes it’s using high resolution optical imagery to detect very small vessels in a set area, other times it’s using radio frequency sensors which detect emissions from a vessel’s marine navigation radar and can cover huge areas of the world,” Andy concluded.
The data science and science teams continue to develop new algorithms and machine learning models that can help make it faster and easier for users to find what they need in this vast, ever increasing data set. “We’re developing a new machine learning model which can flag ships veering strangely off course and identify other anomalous movements. We already have algorithms that show when a vessel is fishing or has met another vessel at sea, which helps fisheries compliance organisations with their inspections. This is to help improve the supply chain transparency.”
Supply chains in fisheries can be complicated and the first step in the chain often happens far out in the ocean – it is common for fishing vessels to offload their catch to a reefer vessel, “basically a big floating fridge,” this lets them stay out at sea for long periods of time. The reefer will mix their catch with the fish from other vessels and in some cases even process the fish on board. Andy said: “It's very hard to trace the complete supply chain. A reefer vessel can bring fish from several vessels that have fished in several areas to a port. And some of these transhipments may not have been reported or tracked, or the catch amount may be inaccurate. That’s one way underreporting, and illegal fishing can happen, which affects fish stocks and also can rob nations of revenue.”
BIO-SECURITY PERFORMANCE
Any country in the world can use Starboard’s technology to protect its flora, fauna, and people. Starboard can be specifically tailored for each country to identify their particular biosecurity threats. Here in Aotearoa some of our biggest threats on the maritime border are things like insects such as stink bugs and invasive marine species. These pests can have a massive effect on our agricultural industry and native flora and fauna.
Starboard can track a vessel's travel history from port to port to see where they have been and display the risk of two specific insects – Brown Marmorated Stink Bug and Asian Gypsy Moth – which may be hitching a ride to Aotearoa on board the vessel.
