Monitoring Boats in Marine Reserves: A MAS Solution

The application of agent methodologies in process monitoring and control is a relatively novel approach, particularly suitable for distributed and dislocated systems. As for marine reservers, access monitoring is aimed at avoiding intrusions of unauthorized boats – also considering that, typically, marine reserves are located in areas not easily accessible. Typical solutions consist of using radar systems or suitable cameras activated by movement sensors. In this paper, we present a multiagent system aimed at monitoring boats in marine reserves. The goal of the proposed system is to discriminate between authorized and unauthorized boats – the formers being equipped with GPS+GSM devices. Boats are tracked by a digital radar that detects their positions. The system has been used to monitor boats in a marine reserve located in the North of Sardinia. Results show that adopting the proposed approach facilitates the system administrator, as well as staff operators, in the task of identifying intrusions.