Hunting the Invisible: How AI and Satellite Radar Are Spotting India’s Dark Ships
Deepak Kumar
IIT Kharagpur
Key Highlights
- India’s maritime security is threatened by thousands of small, unregistered, and AIS-off vessels that evade traditional monitoring systems.
- Conventional methods and generic AI models struggle to detect small, low-contrast boats that dominate India’s fishing fleet.
- SAR imagery provides all-weather, day-night coverage, but needs specialized AI to detect small vessels effectively.
- Our SAR-specific AI solution bridges this gap by detecting suspicious ships even in AIS-dark zones using open satellite data.
- This empowers India’s maritime agencies to protect coastal security, enforce regulations, and strengthen initiatives like Maritime Domain Awareness and the Blue Economy.
India is surrounded by water on three sides. India’s coastline stretches approximately 11,099 km, with an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of around 2.3 million km², and coastal and maritime surveillance requirements have expanded dramatically. Given the rise in untracked, AIS-off vessels involved in illegal fishing and environmental risks, safeguarding this maritime expanse is a necessity. The ocean is India’s lifeline, from coastal fishing and trade to national defense and marine biodiversity.
Yet, a major security concern continues to slip past the radar—“dark ships”, or vessels that sail without broadcasting their identity via AIS (Automatic Identification System). These vessels are invisible to conventional monitoring systems, making them a serious threat.
Our project explores how machine learning combined with satellite-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can fill the surveillance gap and help India detect what was previously hidden at sea.
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Deepak Kumar
IIT Kharagpur
Deepak Kumar is pursuing a dual degree (B.Tech and M.Tech) in Civil Engineering from IIT Kharagpur. He is passionate about artificial intelligence, data science. He enjoys building robust, deployable systems that solve practical problems and contribute to smarter, safer environments.