Dark Ship Detection via Optical and SAR Collaboration: An Improved Multi-Feature Association Method Between Remote Sensing Images and AIS Data
Dark ships, vessels deliberately disabling their AIS signals, constitute a grave maritime safety hazard, with detection efforts hindered by issues like over-reliance on AIS, inadequate surveillance coverage, and significant mismatch rates. This paper proposes an improved multi-feature association me...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Remote Sensing |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17/13/2201 |
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| Summary: | Dark ships, vessels deliberately disabling their AIS signals, constitute a grave maritime safety hazard, with detection efforts hindered by issues like over-reliance on AIS, inadequate surveillance coverage, and significant mismatch rates. This paper proposes an improved multi-feature association method that integrates satellite remote sensing and AIS data, with a focus on oriented bounding box course estimation, to improve the detection of dark ships and enhance maritime surveillance. Firstly, the oriented bounding box object detection model (YOLOv11n-OBB) is trained to break through the limitations of horizontal bounding box orientation representation. Secondly, by integrating position, dimensions (length and width), and course characteristics, we devise a joint cost function to evaluate the combined significance of multiple features. Subsequently, an advanced JVC global optimization algorithm is employed to ensure high-precision association in dense scenes. Finally, by integrating data from Gaofen-6 (optical) and Gaofen-3B (SAR) satellites, a day-and-night collaborative monitoring framework is constructed to address the blind spots of single-sensor monitoring during night-time or adverse weather conditions. Our results indicate that the detection model demonstrates a high average precision (AP50) of 0.986 on the optical dataset and 0.903 on the SAR dataset. The association accuracy of the multi-feature association algorithm is 91.74% in optical image and AIS data matching, and 91.33% in SAR image and AIS data matching. The association rate reaches 96.03% (optical) and 74.24% (SAR), respectively. This study provides an efficient technical tool for maritime safety regulation through multi-source data fusion and algorithm innovation. |
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| ISSN: | 2072-4292 |