Knowledge-aided Multi-Sensor Data Processing for Maritime Surveillance

Maritime Situational Awareness (MSA) is founded on the collection and processing of information from heterogeneous sources, including radars, Navigation Aids (Vessel Traffic Monitoring and Information Systems, Automatic Identification System, Long Range Identification and Tracking System, etc), airbased and space-based monitoring services (Earth Observation), and recentlyconceived passive sensors for maritime surveillance (SIGINT, passive HF/VHF/X band radars). Several strategies for optimally fusing two or more of these information data flows have been proposed for MSA applications. However, the exploitation of context information – i.e. the so-called Knowledge Base – has not yet been thoroughly formulated. This paper provides a preliminary overview of the potential strategies for “knowledge-based” Maritime Multi-Sensor Data Fusion.