A network of HF surface wave radars for maritime surveillance: Preliminary results in the German Bight

In the context of maritime surveillance, low-power HF surface-wave (HFSW) radars have demonstrated to be a cost-effective long-range early-warning sensor for ship detection and tracking. In this work, multi-target tracking and data fusion techniques are applied to live-recorded data from a network of oceanographic HFSW radars installed in the German Bight (North Sea). This experimentation closely follows the one conducted in the Ligurian Sea (Mediterranean Sea) by NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO) Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) during the Battlespace Preparation 2009 (BP09) campaign. Ship reports from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), recorded from both coastal and satellite-based stations, are exploited as ground truth information and a methodology is applied to classify the fused tracks and to estimate system performances. Preliminary results are presented and discussed, together with an outline for future works.