Maerospace: Accurate, reliable maritime intelligence in real time

This article is part of our SPOTLIGHT ON CANADA

Maerospace’s Jay Batista discusses how the Ontario-based maritime intelligence company became a global real-time intelligence supplier via industry leading radar systems and innovative data analytics.

In 2013, a group of executives instrumental in the design and deployment of a satellite constellation for the collection of global maritime AIS location data became concerned with the reliability of the data.

The issue was that any satellite overhead captured only 60 percent of the AIS transmissions from the vessels below and in subsequent passages overhead another 60 percent, but not necessarily the same ships as the previous pass. The satellite AIS data became less reliable because locations were not synchronised in time. Adding a dead reckoning prediction to the data did not solve the problem

That executive team founded Maerospace and focused on the accuracy and reliability of maritime intelligence.

Our first product to market was the TimeCaster data analytics product, which is now in its 4th generation of design. This product allows us to improve the global accuracy of ship positions from greater than 120 nautical miles to within 4 nautical miles, in addition to that we have the ability to find ships that have turned off their MMSI transmitters or that have used a second transmitter on the same identical MMSI in order to spoof the location.

Building on this initial product, Maerospace has built up a development expertise in the areas of data analytics, pattern discovery and recognition, artificial intelligence and machine learning, multi-format data fusion and integration.

In the last three years, we’ve added radar technology (High Frequency Surface Wave Radar (HFSWR)), including licensing technology from Raytheon and over 30 patents, and hiring a staff with a combined expertise of over 100 years, including leading IEE recognised innovations. In the last few months, we’ve added an antenna division, which allows us to continue our radar technology support.

At Maerospace, we have been developing tools that marry our pattern recognition skills to multi-source integration providing multi-domain awareness in a single display.

For example, we have proven that using satellite imagery to recognise vessels and label them with AIS data can be accomplished in less than one minute. Another example is time data analytics to long range AIS feeds and radar to correlate and better understand ship locations.

Adding radar technology to our portfolio further extends our marine domain awareness. The challenge is maintaining maritime sovereignty using your coastal microwave radar. Those systems are good for close to shore observations but are only effective when the target is within line of sight.

By adding a low-band high-frequency surface wave radar at the same location as the coastal radar you extend your coverage out to 200nm, the exclusive economic zone. If you’re sending air missions to patrol that area, you’re going to put in 1,500 air miles each day just to observe the ocean.

By extending your coastal radar coverage and tying in data sources from satellite AIS and data analytics, that fused data gives you distinct advantages allowing you wider range of coverage, persistent coverage, the ability to identify your vessels as they come into the area and target dark and suspicious targets, and the ability to make faster decisions and more accurately deploy your assets.

At Maerospace, we’ve branded this product PASE (Persistent Active Surveillance of the EEZ). It is a mono static system, so it uses a single site for both transmit and receive antennas, and it has been operational for over 10 years, including in Romania on the Black Sea, Sri Lanka, and off the coast of Canada in Halifax.

Our radar system is most often used for national security but is increasingly being used to interdict illegal fishing. With HFSWR you get a good look at commercial cargo vessels as they enter the farthest reaches of the radar, however in large sections you will be able to see mechanised fishing boats and trawlers and the smaller gillnet boats as they come into your region of control. This is especially important if you’ve had incursions into your national waters.

Most of Maeropace’s current products come with a number of features and options. For example, the TimeCaster supports a tool called FutureCast. With FutureCast you can determine the probability of an end destination and even display the voyage track based on machine learning.

All of our data fusion and integration products are customisable for unique applications and so we invite you to contact us to get more information on how our products can be adapted to your unique requirements.