Surveillance Techniques for the Vessel Traffic Service Systems of the U.S. Coast Guard

Abstract

The U.S. Coast Guard operates several Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) in major U.S. shipping ports. These systems were designed and implemented twenty years ago. They were designed for a single mission, port safety. The surveillance and display systems are well beyond the planned service life and need to be replaced. This thesis investigates and summarizes up-to-date methods of providing surveillance services to a VTS. The author includes a history of VTIS, an analysis of the assigned missions, and a review of the C1 factors involved. A functional model of a VTS is developed and used to evaluate the best mix of technologies for VTS systems. The author concludes that a mixture of shore-based radar surveillance and satellite-based surveillance can provide the detection and identification information necessary to operate a multi-mission VTS. In order to take advantage of inexpensive narrow band data links, such as voice grade telephone circuits, radar information must be processed through a radar scan convertor. Use of this technology also improves automated target detection, tracking, and display capabilities of the existing radar and display systems. A second generation VTS should have a modular design, centered around a standardized Vessel Traffic Center (VTC) C2 system. This will reduce the cost of operating a VTS by reducing the manpower needs of a VTC, improving the performance of the VTS system during multi-mission tasking, allowing the use of different sensor types, and creations: a way of integrating VTS information into the main stream of Coast Guard operations.