A Novel Concept for Monitoring of Maritime Traffic by Micro-Satellites

A concept for monitoring of maritime traffic by micro-satellites has been studied at FFI [1]. The concept is based on localization of maritime vessels by passive detection of their X-band navigation radar (3 cm wavelength), and subsequent direction finding and determination of the geographic position. A Phase-A study [3] on the utilization of this concept, for monitoring of the maritime traffic in ocean areas under Norwegian jurisdiction has demonstrated the feasibility of the concept. Localization of vessels can be performed to an accuracy of 1 km or better from a micro-satellite orbiting at 600 km altitude. The concept requires the position and attitude of the microsatellite to be determined with a very high accuracy in all axes. A high performance micro-satellite is therefore required for this concept. Heavy real-time data processing on-board the satellite will transform the radar signals into position and possibly also heading information of the vessel hosting the radar. This information will be broadcasted to stationary and mobile users on ground on a low-rate downlink.