'Eye of God' watch the pirates on the sea

The cameras that distinguish the waves and the horizon will help shore patrols detect ships carrying illegal immigrants, pirates and smugglers.

At least 61 migrants have fallen into the Aegean Sea as they hit rock on their way to Europe. The next day another ship carrying other migrants sank near Lampedusa Island, Italy. If the surveillance camera system is installed at sea, the Coast Guard can detect overloaded ships before they fall victim.

University of South Florida algorithm helps camera capture
The higher the sky the easier.

Maritime experts have long argued that cameras on the buoy in the middle of the ocean are the best way to track marine vehicles. The camera system will take pictures of ships and boats as they travel along the horizon and send the image data to the Coast Guard. However, the idea can not be realized because the camera can not capture the clear image, stable when the buoys float, falling continuously because of waves.

To overcome this, Chad Lembke, a scientist at the University of South Florida in the US, and his colleagues programmed an algorithm that allowed the camera to detect real horizons - not the edge of a nearby wave. it - even when it swayed on the sea. The algorithm distinguishes the edge of the wave with the horizon by analyzing the difference between the blue of the sea and the sky. Then the camera automatically captures or shoots objects that rise above the horizon. The software will ignore everything else in the image and focus only on that object. Sunlight, waves and winds will produce electricity to power the camera, Newscientist reported.

In more than 500 tests, the cameras detected exactly 88% of the overloaded ships in the 300m range. Lembke's team hopes to raise the accuracy to 98% and increase the range to 1,000m.

"In addition to detecting unauthorized vessels and boats, our camera system can send a warning signal to pirates or traders for long periods of time," Lembke said.