Remote sensing images play an important role in maritime search and rescue become a huge task with the rapid development of the shipping industry and other maritime activities. Over the past years witnessed tremendous changes in maritime rescue operations.
Remote sensing application in search and rescue
Remote sensing images not only understand the surface of the Earth or planets, but they can also be explored in layers deep within the planets. On Earth, people can use civilian, specialized aircraft or artificial satellites to transceive remote sensing images. There are two main types of remote sensing: passive remote sensing and active remote sensing.
Application of remote sensing images in rescue and rescue
A large part of this progress stems from international linkages and the contribution of advanced technologies. However, remote sensing images play an important role in current maritime search and rescue operations, especially searching for people on boats, depending mainly on the vision of the human eye.
The International Convention on Maritime Life Safety (SOLAS) stipulates that ships must be equipped with a global maritime and safety system, which has improved search and rescue. However, for many ships not equipped with global safety and maritime systems, such as fishing boats and small cargo ships, the search results are not as expected. With a complex marine environment, finding ships in distress becomes a difficult task.
Limitations of the traditional method of rescue
Due to the limitations of the human eye, rescuers can hardly find small targets in unfavorable lighting conditions, at night or weather conditions with heavy rain and high winds. Continuous long-term observation also causes fatigue of the human eye, resulting in poor detection sensitivity. All of these factors have affected the results of search and rescue activities.
Use of remote sensing radar to identify boats
To improve the effectiveness of maritime search and rescue operations in adverse light and weather conditions, remote sensing technology is a potential method to overcome the limitations of the human eye in search and rescue. Maritime households, and therefore can improve search performance in complex environments or in the state of fatigue of people.
Regarding ship monitoring, compared to on-board, on-board or aerial detection equipment and infrared monitoring methods, the composite aperture radar satellite (SAR) possesses the ability to operate in any Any time and weather conditions, with wide coverage and high resolution to detect ships at sea. Especially because the operational characteristics of satellites are not limited by the sea surface, weather or human factors, it can detect marine areas with distant geographical locations and the environment cannot reach directly. next.
The main role of remote sensing images is to provide secondary sources of information for maritime search and rescue activities. To a certain extent, a remote sensing surveillance system can overcome shortcomings and shortcomings of the human eye.
It can also improve search speed and accuracy, and make sense in promoting the success rate and rescue effectiveness. It can assist rescue workers to complete search and rescue tasks, especially small targets, such as those in distress, and can provide a good detection and identification result.
Remote sensing image processing process
Images from remote sensing image receiving station allow remote sensing image monitoring system to search and salvage maritime including four modules, satellite monitoring module, ship and tissue detection module – Module sea state analysis and integrated processing module. The ship detection module has three functions: locating the ship’s position, identifying / classifying the ship type and predicting the ship’s travel direction. Marine state analysis mainly estimates the direction of wave height and current direction.
Integrated processing module receives information from boat detection module and marine state analysis module. Based on the results of the location of the ship in distress and the direction of the wave, combining the time of receiving the data, it estimates the position of the ship in distress and combining the satellite parameters, it can correct the obtained results via ship detection. The results of the integrated processing module can be transmitted to the Maritime Safety Agency and the rescue ship at the scene, to make decisions for the rescue work.
Source: Wikipedia, DigitalGlob, E-geos
Edit/Ngoc Hien – Dinh Canh