The vessels that matter are the ones not broadcasting
AIS is an excellent system for ships that want to be seen. Transponders get switched off precisely when somebody would want to look, which means a tracking picture built only from AIS is a map of the compliant fleet. Satellite imagery sees hulls rather than signals.
Neither one is sufficient alone
A credible maritime picture needs both, and being clear about what each contributes is the difference between an awareness programme and an expensive dashboard.
Shows you the fleet that agrees to be shown
- Excellent coverage of compliant commercial traffic
- Identity, destination and history, which imagery cannot give you
- But: silent when a transponder is switched off, spoofed or simply absent
- And: small vessels frequently carry nothing at all
Shows you what is physically there
- Detects hulls regardless of whether anything is transmitting
- Radar works through cloud and at night, which is when it matters
- But: a detection is not an identity — it tells you something is there, not who
- Strongest when cross-referenced against the transponder picture
Three decisions this actually feeds
Licensing and revenue
Fishing licences are worth issuing only if there is some way of knowing who is fishing. Detection of unlicensed activity in a defined area, over a series, turns a licensing regime from an honour system into an enforceable one.
- Activity density by zone and season
- Detections cross-referenced against licensed vessels
- Evidence in a form that supports a decision
Where to send a patrol
Nobody can patrol three thousand kilometres. Observation narrows it — a patrol dispatched to a detection is a different proposition from a patrol dispatched on a rumour.
- Priority areas rather than blanket coverage
- Repeat-offender patterns over time
- Tasking that can be justified afterwards
What is happening on the coast
Port activity, anchorage use, and unusual concentrations near sensitive stretches. Slower-moving than vessel detection, and often more informative about what is actually changing.
Coastal change →- Port and anchorage monitoring
- Shoreline and infrastructure change
- Long-baseline comparison
Define the water, and what you would do about it
Give us the zone, the revisit rate you need and the decision the output has to support. We will tell you what is detectable at what confidence — and where a programme would need patrol assets or legal machinery that we do not provide.