Maritime awareness for counter-piracy in the Gulf of Aden

Maritime awareness is a keystone of counter-piracy activities, as they are nowadays unfortunately called for in the Gulf of Aden and the Western Indian Ocean. There are a number of space-based systems that can be used to obtain knowledge of shipping and ship traffic patterns beyond coastal range, e.g. Satellite AIS, LRIT and satellite SAR. Based on data gathered during a trial in 2010, this paper analyses the capabilities of these systems when used to obtain a fused maritime picture. It is concluded that all data sources contribute to the maritime picture, but that in particular for Satellite AIS the update rates need to increase to enable accurate fusion of the non-cooperative data.