Unified Detection and Feature Extraction of Ships in Satellite Images

The increasing importance of maritime surveillance, particularly in monitoring dark ships, highlights the need for advanced detection models that go beyond simple ship localisation. Current approaches largely focus on either detection or feature extraction, leaving a gap in unified methods capable o...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kristian Aalling Sørensen, Peder Heiselberg, Henning Heiselberg
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-12-01
Series:Remote Sensing
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/16/24/4719
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1846102861469974528
author Kristian Aalling Sørensen
Peder Heiselberg
Henning Heiselberg
author_facet Kristian Aalling Sørensen
Peder Heiselberg
Henning Heiselberg
author_sort Kristian Aalling Sørensen
collection DOAJ
description The increasing importance of maritime surveillance, particularly in monitoring dark ships, highlights the need for advanced detection models that go beyond simple ship localisation. Current approaches largely focus on either detection or feature extraction, leaving a gap in unified methods capable of providing detailed ship characteristics. This study addresses this gap by developing a unified model for ship detection and characterisation from Synthetic Aperture Radar images, estimating features such as true length, true breadth, and heading. The model is designed to detect ships of varying sizes while simultaneously estimating their characteristics, and experimental results show a high detection accuracy, with a recall of 87.7% and an F1-score of 93.5%. The model also effectively estimates ship dimensions, with mean errors of 1.4 ± 16.2 m for length and 1.5 ± 4.5 m for breadth. Estimating the heading proved challenging for smaller ships, but was accurate for larger ships. A total of 50% of the heading estimates were within 15 degrees of error. This unified approach offers practical benefits for maritime operations. It is especially useful in situations where both ship detection and detailed information are needed, such as predicting future ship positions or identifying ships.
format Article
id doaj-art-8270aa1ca3a14c26b76cbf9217255ab0
institution Kabale University
issn 2072-4292
language English
publishDate 2024-12-01
publisher MDPI AG
record_format Article
series Remote Sensing
spelling doaj-art-8270aa1ca3a14c26b76cbf9217255ab02024-12-27T14:51:00ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922024-12-011624471910.3390/rs16244719Unified Detection and Feature Extraction of Ships in Satellite ImagesKristian Aalling Sørensen0Peder Heiselberg1Henning Heiselberg2DTU Security, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, DenmarkGeodesy and Earth Observation, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, DenmarkDTU Security, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, DenmarkThe increasing importance of maritime surveillance, particularly in monitoring dark ships, highlights the need for advanced detection models that go beyond simple ship localisation. Current approaches largely focus on either detection or feature extraction, leaving a gap in unified methods capable of providing detailed ship characteristics. This study addresses this gap by developing a unified model for ship detection and characterisation from Synthetic Aperture Radar images, estimating features such as true length, true breadth, and heading. The model is designed to detect ships of varying sizes while simultaneously estimating their characteristics, and experimental results show a high detection accuracy, with a recall of 87.7% and an F1-score of 93.5%. The model also effectively estimates ship dimensions, with mean errors of 1.4 ± 16.2 m for length and 1.5 ± 4.5 m for breadth. Estimating the heading proved challenging for smaller ships, but was accurate for larger ships. A total of 50% of the heading estimates were within 15 degrees of error. This unified approach offers practical benefits for maritime operations. It is especially useful in situations where both ship detection and detailed information are needed, such as predicting future ship positions or identifying ships.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/16/24/4719Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)maritime domain awarenessship detectionship feature extractiondeep learning
spellingShingle Kristian Aalling Sørensen
Peder Heiselberg
Henning Heiselberg
Unified Detection and Feature Extraction of Ships in Satellite Images
Remote Sensing
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
maritime domain awareness
ship detection
ship feature extraction
deep learning
title Unified Detection and Feature Extraction of Ships in Satellite Images
title_full Unified Detection and Feature Extraction of Ships in Satellite Images
title_fullStr Unified Detection and Feature Extraction of Ships in Satellite Images
title_full_unstemmed Unified Detection and Feature Extraction of Ships in Satellite Images
title_short Unified Detection and Feature Extraction of Ships in Satellite Images
title_sort unified detection and feature extraction of ships in satellite images
topic Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
maritime domain awareness
ship detection
ship feature extraction
deep learning
url https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/16/24/4719
work_keys_str_mv AT kristianaallingsørensen unifieddetectionandfeatureextractionofshipsinsatelliteimages
AT pederheiselberg unifieddetectionandfeatureextractionofshipsinsatelliteimages
AT henningheiselberg unifieddetectionandfeatureextractionofshipsinsatelliteimages