The goal of this study is to provide a model for maritime accidents which focuses on human factor related safety concerns and permits the economic evaluation of countermeasures. In order to halt the trend of maritime accidents it is necessary to identify the human related factors that are associated with them and address a method of analysis to isolate these factors and evaluate their economic impact. The United States Coast Guard (USCG) investigates and records data on accidents for vessels in U.S. waters and U.S. flag vessels all over the world. Other organizations which collect accident data are Lloyds of London, the P&I Club and some marine insurance companies. In order to understand the magnitude of human factor related accidents the USCG casualty database CASMAIN, which provides consistently gathered data for a period of more than ten years from (1981 to 1991), is analyzed. This database contains close to 66,133 records on 42,367 accidents. Accident analysis in the past was restricted to statistical reporting of the nature of casualty and its primary causes. Analysis rarely add ressed such issues as contributing causes and the variety of human factors causes and still further those contributing factors which led to failure of the human being from performing at an that more than 80% of the accidents were a result, whether direct or indirect, of human error. Such issues as workload, fatigue and stress in the transportation arena are being considered only now and other factors such as the effects of circadian rhythms and alertness switches are still in the realm of research. To better understand the human factors causes and their rationale a functional model of critical tasks and resources to carry them out is outlined. The human factors causes of accidents are also detrimental to the personnel resources required for a safe ship operation. If the risks posed by these factors can be assessed we would be in a better position to ensure that the tasks are performed properly and thus realize a safer and more efficient maritime system. Past historical accident data from the USCG CASMAI N database was then developed and organized to provide numerical estimates of human error frequencies for use in the proposed model. The resulting model would permit assessing costs and alternatives and result in a methodology of better addressing marine transportation safety with an emphasis on its prime creator, user and benefiter:-The Human. / Master of Science

M.Ing. / There is a growing need to enhance situation awareness in the maritime environment utilizing new and current technologies. There are numerous ways to enhance situation awareness by employing long-range vision detection systems, data fusion techniques, such as combining radar and automatic identification system (AIS) data and data mining techniques that allow for filtering out anomalies. With the proliferation of high-quality video equipment and cheaper and faster computational machines, there is an increasing need for automated video surveillance as the amount of information available to the operator for processing is overwhelming. It is therefore necessary that only crucial information that may negatively impact mission effectiveness be presented to the operator. Whilst performing surveillance one would be interested in monitoring other surface vessels within the sensor coverage. The detection and tracking of small and slow moving targets having low signal-to-noise ratios is of interest in the maritime environment. This is particularly challenging as influences from the natural environment, such as sea states, glint, whitecaps and clutter, on a target is captured during image acquisition and this has adverse effects on the tracking of a target. A grey-scale based target tracking algorithm using the particle filter framework was developed and tested in MATLAB® (R2008a). The main focus of the work is on the use of dynamic models in a particle filtering framework. The dynamic model contributes to the propagation of the particles in a particle filtering framework of the target grey-scale distribution. The dynamic models investigated are the constant velocity model and an acceleration model. The algorithm was tested with real-world image sequences in the maritime environment. The targets were tracked for the duration of the image sequence and the dynamic model that accounted for acceleration yielded better results when analysing the position error between the estimated position and the ground truth data points. A slight improvement in this error makes a significant difference on tracking a target as targets in the maritime environment context are small. The future scope of the work would then include accounting for more features of the target such as edge cues and/or implementing adaptive observation models to improve the accuracy, stability and robustness of the algorithm for real-time applications.

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the Doctor of Technology Degree in Information Technology, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2014. / The work described in this thesis summarizes the author’s contributions to the design, development and testing of embedded solutions for maritime Radio and Satellite tracking and detecting systems. In order to provide reliable tracking and detecting facilities of ships have to be integrated Convectional Maritime Radio Communications (CMRC) and Maritime Mobile Satellite Communications (MMSC) systems. On the other hand, Global Mobile Satellite Communications (GMSC) as a part of Global Communication Satellite Systems (GCSS) has to be integrated with Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) of the US GPS or Russian GLONASS systems. The proposed local maritime Radio VHF Communication, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) systems and devices, such as Radio Automatic Identification System (R-AIS) or VHF Data Link (VDL), Radio Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (RADS-B) and GNSS Augmentation VDL-Broadcast (GAVDL-B) are introduced. The new technology deigns of global Satellite CNS maritime equipment and systems, such as Global Ship Tracking (GST) as enhanced Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT), Satellite AIS (S-AIS), Satellite Data Link (SDL), Satellite Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (SADS-B) and GNSS Augmentation SDL (GASDL) are discussed and benefits of these new technologies and solution for improved Ship Traffic Control (STC) and Management (STM) are explored. The regional maritime CNS solutions via Stratospheric Communication Platforms (SCP), tracking of ships at sea via Space Synthetic Aperture Radar (SSAR) or Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR)and Ground Synthetic Aperture Radar (GSAR) are described. The special tracking systems for collision avoidance with enhanced safety and security at sea including solutions of captured ships by pirates through aids of the MMSC, SCP and Radars are introduced and the testing methodologies employed to qualify embedded hardware for this environment are presented. During the voyage of the ship in good weather conditions and when navigation devices on the bridge are in order, then can be used very well AIS, LRIT, anti-collision Radar and other on-board equipment. However, at very bad weather conditions sometimes surveillance Radar and Radio HF Transceiver cannot work, but may work only GPS Receiver and L/C-band Satellite Transceiver, while Radio VHF Transceiver will have extremely reduced coverage, what is not enough for safe navigation and collision avoidance. Therefore, during those critical circumstances, when the safety of navigations very important, it will be not necessary to ask "Where am I", but "Where are nearby ships around me"? At this point, it should be needed the newest techniques and equipment for enhanced STC and STM, such as GST, S-AIS, SDL, SADS-B and GASDL. Terrorists exploit surprise in successful pirate actions worldwide and security forces are generally unaware of the source of these attacks at sea. In today’s information age, terror threats may originate with transnational organizations or exploit the territory of failed, weak or neutral states. Thus, countering piracy by eliminating the terrorists on land is the best solution, however, it might not be feasible and even though it’s successful could require many years. In the thesis, the general overview of Radio and Mobile Satellite Systems (MSS) for ship communication and tracking systems is conducted as well, including the space platform and orbital mechanics, horizon and geographic satellite coordinates and classification of spacecraft by Geostationary Earth Orbits (GEO) and Non-GEO orbits.