Maritime Domain Awareness -- The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its
Guest post by Mr. Dana Goward, Director of Assessment, Integration, and Risk Management.
As the recent piracy cases off the coast of Somalia have illustrated, there is a significant need for maritime domain awareness - the ability to detect, classify and identify vessels at sea. We need greater awareness on the high seas as well as along our coastlines for safety and security purposes. This need has been universally agreed upon by the international maritime community.
Two of the means the Coast Guard is pursuing to enhance our awareness of the maritime domain are the Automatic Identification System (AIS) and global Long Range Identification Tracking (LRIT). I want to address the inaccurate arguments suggesting these systems are not being properly coordinated and their capabilities are redundant.
While AIS and LRIT are complementary, they provide different types of information, apply to different classes and sizes of vessels, and are being developed under separate statutory and international mandates. LRIT, which became mandatory on 01 January 2009 for passenger vessels and cargo vessels over 300 gross tons conducting international voyages, is a mandated system by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). AIS will be required for most vessels over 65ft in U.S. waters and was mandated by the Congress under the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002. It is also a global system required under the International Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention.
The primary purpose of AIS is navigational safety. It is a VHF-FM system that self-reports every 2-10 seconds but is limited to line-of-sight coverage. It is extremely useful for bridge-bridge communications at sea as well as an input to Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Services trying to deconflict contacts within their ports. Since it is an open broadcast system, there is no expectation of confidentiality in the signal transmissions.
LRIT is principally satellite based providing broad coverage on the high seas but it only self-reports every 6 hours. Its primary purpose is for maritime safety and security. LRIT is more "secure" than AIS because the data is only accessible to those nations who have agreed to the SOLAS convention.
We are dealing with two different systems. Both are needed because they feed vessel positions, which can be verified against each other, into the Coast Guard's Common Operational Picture. This centralized system can aggregate vessel positions from a variety of sources, including LRIT and AIS, to provide comprehensive track displays that enable operational commanders to detect safety and security anomalies. These different information sources are the pillars of maritime domain awareness - if you remove one of the pillars you reduce the stability of your awareness structure. This means potentially putting mariners, as well as the safety and security of our Marine Transportation System, at greater risk.
Maritime threats, including piracy and the potential use of small vessels, can be mitigated through greater maritime domain awareness. It is the Coast Guard's responsibility to use all available means of information to achieve that goal and we are doing so at best possible speed.
As the recent piracy cases off the coast of Somalia have illustrated, there is a significant need for maritime domain awareness - the ability to detect, classify and identify vessels at sea. We need greater awareness on the high seas as well as along our coastlines for safety and security purposes. This need has been universally agreed upon by the international maritime community.
Two of the means the Coast Guard is pursuing to enhance our awareness of the maritime domain are the Automatic Identification System (AIS) and global Long Range Identification Tracking (LRIT). I want to address the inaccurate arguments suggesting these systems are not being properly coordinated and their capabilities are redundant.
While AIS and LRIT are complementary, they provide different types of information, apply to different classes and sizes of vessels, and are being developed under separate statutory and international mandates. LRIT, which became mandatory on 01 January 2009 for passenger vessels and cargo vessels over 300 gross tons conducting international voyages, is a mandated system by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). AIS will be required for most vessels over 65ft in U.S. waters and was mandated by the Congress under the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002. It is also a global system required under the International Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention.
The primary purpose of AIS is navigational safety. It is a VHF-FM system that self-reports every 2-10 seconds but is limited to line-of-sight coverage. It is extremely useful for bridge-bridge communications at sea as well as an input to Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Services trying to deconflict contacts within their ports. Since it is an open broadcast system, there is no expectation of confidentiality in the signal transmissions.
LRIT is principally satellite based providing broad coverage on the high seas but it only self-reports every 6 hours. Its primary purpose is for maritime safety and security. LRIT is more "secure" than AIS because the data is only accessible to those nations who have agreed to the SOLAS convention.
We are dealing with two different systems. Both are needed because they feed vessel positions, which can be verified against each other, into the Coast Guard's Common Operational Picture. This centralized system can aggregate vessel positions from a variety of sources, including LRIT and AIS, to provide comprehensive track displays that enable operational commanders to detect safety and security anomalies. These different information sources are the pillars of maritime domain awareness - if you remove one of the pillars you reduce the stability of your awareness structure. This means potentially putting mariners, as well as the safety and security of our Marine Transportation System, at greater risk.
Maritime threats, including piracy and the potential use of small vessels, can be mitigated through greater maritime domain awareness. It is the Coast Guard's responsibility to use all available means of information to achieve that goal and we are doing so at best possible speed.
Posted at
12:05 PM
7 Comments:
I fully support the use of LRIT and LRAIS to enhance maritime security and the Coast Guard's Common Operational Picture, but I'm concerned that the Coast Guard is not placing enough emphasis on vessels that may simply choose not to comply with U.S. and international regulations regarding LRIT and AIS. The post mentioned piracy as a problem that could mitigated through greater maritime domain awareness. This statement is true, but without a means to detect vessels not participating in LRIT or AIS, we will not be able to successfully counter threats from piracy or attacks from small vessels.
To counter threats from small vessels, piracy, and other rogue vessels not participating in LRIT or AIS, we will need to ensure we are employing a robust air surveillance program in addition to our LRIT and AIS initiatives. I believe the Coast Guard should use the Australian Customs Coastwatch program as a model to create a dedicated maritime domain awareness air surveillance force. More on this program can be found here -
http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=4238
A dedicated air surveillance program would provide a pillar of maritime domain awareness that is currently lacking and so extremely necessary in achieving a secure maritime domain.
LT,
My thinking is that any non-compliant vessel would stick out like a sore thumb. Any sector watchstander looking at an AIS picture is going to be looking at radar also - likely overlaid. Anomalies would be easy to identify, track and investigate. That's why I think the best idea is to make AIS mandatory for all vessels so our MDA picture in monitored ports would be nearly complete. We could even link our intel to transponder numbers and those who registered them in a database and be able to identify threats even easier.
Not only would we have better information and more awareness but the cost-benefit ratio is attractive because we already have the necessary personnel in place at our VTSs and sectors and the cost of AIS transponders would be borne only by boaters. Plus an $800 transponder hardly seems burdensome for boaters who are already spending $1000s to purchase and maintain a boat. Compared to an aerial monitoring scheme, well there's no comparison...
Australia's port system is completely different than ours. While they have a comparable number of deepwater ports, the volume and concentration of their traffic is night and day compared to ours. The coastline from Brisbane to Adelaide includes 4 of their 5 busiest ports yet accounts for less than a quarter of their coast. In a concentrated area like this 400 weekly flight hours might give them all the MDA they need. Unfortunately, here in the states, our ports are much busier and decentralized. If you think about it, almost all of our coastline is part of one major port's local network or another. Here we would need 100s of new airframes and 1000s of new people for comparable coverage. The cost is down right wasteful when considering the meager benefit, if any, over AIS IMHO.
r/
Bender,
You are absolutely correct that AIS would make non-compliant vessels stand out like a sore thumb. But using localized radar, as your primary tool for identifying suspicious non-compliance vessels is just not viable for two reasons. First, radar is only available in a small number of sectors with established Vessel Traffic Services (VTS). The amount of radar coverage of the nations coast is extremely small. Existing radar coverage is primarily near shore approaches to large port areas. Secondly, by the time we identify a non-compliant rogue vessel on radar, it is far too late. Time is a big factor we have to consider in planning how we establish MDA. We would more often than not, be unable to forcefully stop a large non-compliant ship, with only a moment?s notice, even in our largest ports.
We need to identify threats and potential threats far offshore before they reach the entrances to our ports in order to allow an effective response to be organized and put into action.
Take for instance a rogue coastal freighter approaching the port of San Francisco. This could be a small freight ship maybe 300 ft in length, not the size of a container ship, but big enough to pose a serious threat to the port. If the ship was not broadcasting AIS or LRIT, did not have an advanced notice of arrival, nor an arranged berth, how and when would it be detected? The pilot station? How would it be stopped?
Australia's MDA needs are certainly different than ours, but I am almost certain 400 dedicated flight hours for MDA surveillance is far more than what we are logging currently. The recommendation I pose certainly comes with expense, and you bring up a valid issue. Airframes and manning would be a huge hurdle. Perhaps this is a task that could be performed by the Air Force, Navy, or a Joint Agency Task Force, similar to how we fight maritime drug trafficking off of Central America. We certainly have a variety of military aircraft logging hundreds of hours in training and logistics flights over our coastlines each week. More often than not, we just have o figure out how to use resources efficiently. Successful MDA cannot be completely passive; we must begin to look at actively engaging resources to contribute to the whole picture.
LT,
You bring up some very common concerns. I think that you and I are pretty close on matters of principle and that we are only discordant in terms of scale. By that I mean I believe you are judging the capabilities of AIS only by what the Coast Guard can monitor with our own installed sensors whereas I believe our sensing capabilities go well beyond the reach of VTS-linked and radar-monitored ports.
First, all of our cutters are nodes in this conceptual anomaly detection system (I'll call it CADS for brevity sake.) As they come online, AIS-equpped RB-Ss and RB-Ms become nodes in the CADS too. Already, the reach of CADS is well beyond the bounds of what the VTS locations can monitor. Moreover, AIS receivers are much cheaper than the transponders and most commercial vessels have opted to install receivers as well. These vessels can just as easily spot an anomaly, and in reality, these vessels would be the most important nodes by way of their sheer numbers and by acting as an informal CADS picket stretching far off shore (think America's Waterways Watch).
While the loose and unofficial nature of this network maybe disconcerting superficially, imagine its effect on our theoretical non-AIS-compliant enemy who may raise the suspicions of any vessel that can see him on radar or with eyeballs.
If you're still not convinced, think of the boats as cars and think of AIS transponders as license plates; your non-compliant vessel is like a car without plates. Your concerns about only being able to detect the vessel within VTS coverage is like worrying that the car won't pass a traffic camera and even if it does it'll be long gone before we can do anything about it. When you overlook the node multipliers like cutters, small boats and commercial vessels, it's the same as overlooking the likely situations where the car without tags will be spotted by a squad car or be reported by a concerned citizen. Perps don't rip the plates off stolen cars because it's even more suspicious. A waterborne threat without AIS won't be a concern for the same reasons.
Now, there are other, more substantial concerns about AIS limitations. One would be stolen transponders. Another is that the transponder in and of itself isn't a deterrence, meaning that a boat with legit AIS could still be used in an attack. The fact is that these are actually matters of intel not detection. Still, even if you assume that these are shortcomings of AIS, the risks have already been mitigated by the system. The enemy who steals a transponder has already jeopardized his mission by risking being caught in the act of stealing or risking that the transponder theft will be discovered and it will be put on a watch list. In the situation using a legit transponder, at least we now know where the boat is at and who owns it. This data can easily be cross-checked against terror watch lists too.
With respect to aerial MDA, I've got to disagree with your assessment on several counts. First, 65s alone fly an average total of roughly 1000 hours a week. I didn't bother looking up the rates for other aircraft but if you include Auxiliary air MDA patrols I imagine the total will be in the ballpark of 2000 hours. Regardless, your approach remains cost-prohibitive and your stated goal of "actively engaging resources to contribute to the whole picture" is better achieved through our port partners (in the CADS scheme) who are far more numerous than any number of aircraft we could muster yet just as vested in the safety of our waterways and cost the taxpayer nothing more than the occasional box of donuts at the AMSC meeting.
r/
Bender,
I think we agree to disagree on this one. I believe my train of thought is focused more offshore than yours, where cutters and patrol boats are few and far between. Know that my concerns and recommendations are based on experience. I am a licensed merchant mariner and have served in both a district and sector command center for the past 4 years. I am very well versed on AIS, the Coast Guard's MDA tools, and our use of aircraft as an MDA tool.
I am fully aware that a container ship not broadcasting AIS information could draw attention to itself, but again, that would likely not occur until it approached more congested coastal sea lanes. This re-iterates how time plays into MDA. We need more time!
I have personally had to deal with a small, suspicious, un-announced ship arriving at the San Francisco sea buoy. I won't go into all the details here, but luckily for us, the ship turned out to be non-threatening. It was an eye-opening experience without a doubt.
I would also note that AIS units are self-programmed by the user, so ship specific theft is not a large concern. The fact that a user can program whatever they want into the AIS unit is a greater concern.
I don't want to go on forever, but my response to you is that I am not convinced. I think we have made great strides in localized port specific MDA. We still need to put more into our coastal/offshore MDA; we need to have more oversight, coordination, and more assets involved. You're right about agency partners however, they can and should be involved as much as possible.
My concern is with the small vessel threat inside our port waterways and along our coastline. I believe that the innovative MDA Inspector Program at Sector LA - LB can and does backfill the need for maintaining situational awareness throughout the Sector's AOR. The program utilizes trained Auxiliarists who must attend an intense two week MDA academy with an 18 chapter, 166 lessons MDA based curriculum. The training includes identifying four core pre-incident indicators of terrorist incidents known as Surveillance, Elicitation, Test of Security and Suspicious behaviour (S.E.T.S). The Auxiliarists then are required to complete a PQS, successful pre-board and board before they are considered qualified MDA Inspectors. MDA Inspector Patrols are done in shifts with 24 hour coverage.
This program has proven to be an asset in maintaining situational awareness and contributing to the Sector's common operational picture. The implementation of this program at every Sector would greatly improve the Sectors ability to maintain the common operational picture, thus increasing the opportunity to detect and even prevent adverse anomalies that will affect our safety, security, environment and or economy.
Bender,
Your comment about..."any non-compliant vessel will stick out like a sore thumb" because the watch stander is also tracking it on radar is correct in theory. However, my personal observation has been that watch standers are overly-reliant on a self-reporting system (AIS) and don't properly utilize available radar or camera sensors.
Was anyone tracking the non-AIS Haitian boat that recently capsized north of Miami, killing 10migrants? It was certainly well within range of radar sensors at Ft. Lauderdale and Palm Beach.
AIS is great for tracking "white shipping" vessels. Mandating Class B AIS for small vessels and recreational boaters will only alienate these valuable port partners by burdening them financially while raising privacy concerns...all to create a bigger "haystack."
A more effective approach to the small vessel threat may be to employ the Geographical Area Calling functionality of the Digital Selective Calling (DSC) system already in place on all VHF radios sold since 1999. Coast Guard port security systems (PAWSS, VTS, Hawkeye) could be used to establish virtual auto-acquire zones on electronic charts. Vessels would be tracked with radar and automatically contacted via DSC if they are within the prescribed geographical boundaries and violate certain pre-defined rules (course, speed, no AIS). Result; little added expense to the Coast Guard, no additional equipment to buy for boaters, and no privacy concerns. Best of all, a layered defense could be developed that doesn't rely on the bad guys voluntarily broadcasting their position and intentions.
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