A Knowledge Discovery Framework for Maritime Intelligence on Dark Vessels
Bharat Jayaswal, Soumya K. Ghosh · 2025
Maritime Intelligence is essential for safeguarding maritime interests of coastal nations. Traditionally, vessel movements are tracked using self-reported positions via Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders. However, vessels engaged in illicit activities often disable their AIS transponders to evade detection, thereby going dark. Satellite-based sensors, such as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) can be used to detect Dark Vessels. However, extraction of actionable insights for maritime intelligence on Dark Vessels is posed with several challenges. The spatial estimation of activities of vessels over various time periods is complicated due to spatial and temporal overlaps in satellite scans. This poster presents our ideas on knowledge discovery framework that integrates spatial analytics methods to gain actionable insights on Dark Vessels. Preliminary results are shown on Global Fishing Watch (GFW) Dataset of Dark Vessels.