Fourth steering committee - AIS from space

The fourth meeting of the steering committee took place on 1 December 2009. It was attended by

INTRODUCTION

ESA opened the meeting and asked for comments to the proposed agenda. EMSA stated that they were reluctant to provide any information on the “User Benefit Analysis” as the draft specifications on the subject had been posted on the DG-MARE internal web site. As the activity is in the process of being initiated, this has infringed confidentiality issues which will be clarified outside the meeting between EMSA and MARE.

OUTSTANDING ACTIONS

DG MARE went through action items of previous meeting (23.4.2009) and it was agreed that all actions had been either successfully completed or covered by the agenda points of this meeting.

PROGRESS ON ONGOING PERFORMANCE TESTING AND NEW SYSTEMS (PASTA-MARE)

The PASTA-MARE consortium (represented by: Gert Eiden, Jim Stuart and Robert Tremlett) presented the status of their activities.

The following issues were raised:

1. The traffic density maps are being prepared. The 1 nautical mile grid requested in the specifications may be too fine to allow a meaningful visualisation of traffic.
2. Implementation of an AIS receiver for satellites to be tested through airborne campaign. ESA had provided a design of a receiver that is to be used in the trials. Because of the incomplete nature of the design and the late stage at which it was received, the consortium propose to collect the raw signals in the campaign and process them afterwards. This more flexible approach might provide better data for calibration of algorithms. In ESA’s view the new approach proposed for the implementation of the SATAIS receiver may not be compliant with the specifications of the PASTAMARE specifications. The consortium confirmed that ESA comments had been received and that they would prepare a reply. If there is a further need for discussion, MARE will organise a meeting.
3. Access to terrestrial SAT AIS data is still not finalised. The tragic demise of the TREN member of the Steering Committee had interrupted efforts to obtain access to SafeSeaNet and LRIT. Other avenues are being pursued.
4. The aircraft originally selected for the airborne campaign is not available anymore so a new aircraft will have to be selected. It was pointed out by INFSO that this could represent a single point failure for the activity if not properly solved. The consortium said they would send a proposal to the Steering Committee shortly.

Despite these challenges the project is on track to deliver the results on time and the growing number of satellites in orbit means that a number of operational requests have been satisfied on a trial basis:

1. estimation of the density, nature and nationality of shipping in the piracy-prone gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia
2. finding the lost Pompei and tracking it to the coast and back to where it had been hijacked
3. tracking a vessel carrying ESA components from Archangel

The PASTA-MARE team left the room after their presentation.

OUTCOME OF 3RD INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM "TECHNICAL EXCHANGE ON AIS VIA SATELLITE"

MARE presented feedback from the TEXAS-III conference last summer (DG-MARE) on behalf of JRC in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. An increasing number of receivers are already in orbit or planned. Some are already offering operational services. On the basis of declared total costs for programmes, the EU could probably negotiate a service for all institutional users for around €3-4 million a year.

ESA thought that a service at this price would not necessarily meet all the requirements endorsed by the steering committee (interval between reports in particular). These requirements cannot be changed and would, as a first estimate, need 12 satellites.

OUTCOME OF THE DATA POLICY TASK FORCE

The outcome of the Data Policy Task Force was summarised by MARE. Deciding on who should and should not receive the data is a legal matter that is beyond the remit of the Steering Committee. However it does not affect the costs of a system. The only factors that might have an impact are a change in frequency or an encryption of the signal. The first is possible but unlikely in the short term and the second looks technically impossible. The conclusions are available on the maritime forum.

TREN stressed the importance of data security in order to preserve commercial confidentiality and security. They stressed that Sat-AIS should not be competitive to LRIT. EMSA commented that complementary use of both systems could benefit the user communities.

STATUS OF THE STRATEGIC DISCUSSION WITH ESA MEMBER STATES

ESA shortly presented the status of current exploratory bilateral meetings with ESA Member States interested in a European Sat AIS Mission. They said that none had committed themselves but a number were interested.

PROGRESS ON ESA PROJECTS ON AIS FROM SPACE

ESA presented the status of current ESA co-funded parallel studies on SAT-AIS. ESA repeated that their contractors were studying 3 options.

1. A purpose-built European system
2. A system whereby partners contribute a satellite to a constellation and gain access to the results of all the others
3. Sensors piggy-backed on other systems

ESA said that the costing of the different options has not yet been finalised but will be provided to the Committee after they have been checked by ESA. MARE said that ESA would have to explore a range of options, taking very much into account cost considerations.

MARE said that there are obvious advantages in putting AIS sensors on observation satellites engaged in maritime monitoring. If the observation satellites pass at different times to the AIS receivers, then it will be impossible to correlate signals. Since AIS sensor are cheap, it makes more sense to consider them as add-ons to observational satellites than the other way round. MARE will see whether there is a window of opportunity to mount them on ESA's GMES Sentinel (in fact ESA have indicated that it is not feasible for Sentinel 1A which has a synthetic aperture radar payload but are checking for 1B and 1C).

EDA asked if Class B vessels could be identified with the system. ESA said that this had not been included as a "requirement". It was however a "desirable". TREN commented that Class B is important for security purposes. ESA replied that there is problem of interference in high density areas, but Class B could be covered in specific regions on request.

The system shall accommodate for growth in Class B vessels in the next 15 years, which is estimated in a total of TBD vessels

INFSO thought that if the system were classed as a critical infrastructure, then there might be additional requirements.

USER BENEFITS ANALYSIS

EMSA are launching a study on user benefits of a satellite AIS system. MARE thought that the study might profitably be delayed till some more precise performance figures come out of the PASTA-MARE project. Otherwise it is unlikely that we will obtain much more information than was obtained in ESA's user requirements study. EMSA said that they would find it difficult to obtain authorisation for moving forward on the issue without some early confirmation that somebody would find it useful. The ESA study (which in any case has not been released yet) does not provide enough information. Some of the Committee mentioned specific applications.

1. EDA said that navies and coastguards are very interested in a service and repeated their interest in Class B. The Agency added that it is aware of similar initiatives at Member State level.
2. TAXUD said that Customs administrations are interested in the movement of the vessel as this is one of the criteria taken into account during the Risk management process. Routes different from the normal pattern should be detected and (automatically) reported to the relevant authorities.
3. TREN were concerned that information about rival shippers might lead to unfair competition in some way.

Next meeting

The next steering committee meeting is planned for the first or second quarter of 2010.