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2019-11-13

Track Ocean Assets with Ocean Finder’s Interface

Recently, Airbus Defence and Space released the latest version of Ocean Finder, its digital maritime service to detect, identify and track collaborative and non-collaborative vessels around the globe.

Ocean Finder is an innovative interface that allows customers to directly order satellite-based maritime detection and identification reports to monitor ships and activity at sea. It supports a wide range of applications, such as monitoring fleets of ships, locating hijacked boats, illegal activities detection, maritime mission preparation as well as ensuring safety in hostile areas and supporting search and rescue operations.

The service encompasses 24/7 access to Ocean Finder platform, allowing maritime stakeholders to inspect available satellite footprints in relation to additional information like AIS (Automatic Identification System) and nautical charts, as well as the option to order satellite-based situational reports. Vessel detection reports (VDR) include near real-time information regarding vessel positions, size and relevant context information.

First launched in 2018, Ocean Finder leverages the Airbus satellite constellations, offering a full spectrum of Earthimaging data, spanning multiple resolutions and spectral wavelengths, along with in-house maritime expertise. The service combines freshly acquired imagery with additional information sources including AIS and open source data to deliver object-centric (ships, icebergs, oil slick) or area-centric (objects in a given area) detection and identification. The service is accessed via a dedicated web portal allowing users to easily define the localisation and the surface of their area of interest and task the satellites directly. This can be activated in standard mode to support planned mission preparation, or emergency mode to support urgent intervention. The platform supports a broad range of critical applications across defence and security, shipping, oil and gas, and insurance markets.

Ocean Finder’s latest updates introduce a number of innovative features – extending the service’s capabilities in several key areas. Thanks to this, users will benefit from enhanced imagery and AIS data correlation to identify the precise location of a non-responding vessel in near real-time. This development has been combined with the latest in fully automated detection and classification, which utilises powerful proprietary algorithms to determine a vessel’s identity in just a few seconds. Subsequently, Airbus’ human analysts are able to focus on providing additional, value-added intelligence, such as interpretation of specific behaviour or threats, without delaying a report’s delivery. New tools have also been incorporated to provide the most relevant acquisition plan to predict routes and projected locations of vessels, based on last position, date, trajectory and speed.

Several of the unique features have been made possible through a multi-year partnership with exactEarth, a leading provider of satellite-AIS data services. The agreement, which provides Ocean Finder with access to exactView RT – exactEarth’s second-generation real-time satellite-AIS data platform – includes all live and archived data.

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