Fishing Vessel Monitoring Systems: Past, Present and Future

VMS: Past, Present and Future 27
upon a proprietary algorithmic treatment of that data would provide a level of
security we feel could be rightly described as decisive.
4.7 Satellite vessel detection systems (VDS)
It is only prudent to assume that the security against tampering of VMS data at
the level of the terminal will never be perfect. For this reason, systems of
independently verifying VMS data, by means totally independent of any of the
VMS elements, are an attractive option. Until now, the only work being done in
this area has been under the auspices of the European Commission and a
project called IMPAST.
This effort has successfully demonstrated the potential of VDS , but it has also
demonstrated that for reasons of both infrastructure and cost, we are unlikely to
see generalized VDS for some years to come.
The system developed under IMPAST consists of inputs from satellite SAR
imagery that are subsequently processed into detected target positions that are,
in turn, fed into a matching module for correlation against VMS records. The
VMS data are input from FMCs whose fleet is active in the imaged area of
interest. The system outputs are the detected targets (VDS records) and the
result of the matching with VMS records. The intended use of the system is the
support to monitoring and control tasks in the respective FMCs through the
provision of information on target positions for which matching VMS records exist
or not, and on VMS records for which no matching target is detected.