. the position of a detected ship at a given 

 point in time; 



• course and speed of a vessel when a 

 series of position updates are available; 

 and 



. estimates of gross shape and size. 



However, microwave radar by itself has 

 almost no potential to classify vessels by type, 

 nationalitiy, or operation. Some classification 

 may be possible by continuous tracking to 

 establish movement patterns, but microwave 

 radar's primary contribution to classification 

 is in guiding patrol ships or aircraft to a posi- 

 tion where identification can be made by 

 visual means. Detection of fishing vessels by 

 radar is enhanced, and identification and 

 classification made possible, by adding trans- 

 ponders onboard permitted foreign fishing 

 vessels. 



Any modern commercial or military ship- 

 board radar can easily detect fishing boats at a 

 distance of up to 12- to 18-nautical miles 

 (nmi). Existing ground-based, surface-search 

 radars, such as the sea surveillance radars 

 developed for the Pacific Missile Test Center 

 by the Navy Electronics Laboratory Center, 

 can detect fishing vessels at a distance of up to 

 40 nmi from the land base. These systems are 

 already in use by the Coast Guard which has 

 some of the best available equipment. 



The opportunities for improving the use of 

 microwave radar lay in the use of more ad- 

 vanced radar systems from aircraft or 

 satellites and the addition of transponders on- 

 board fishing vessels in order to exploit the in- 

 formation-gathering potential of the combina- 

 tion. It is estimated that a single aircraft with 

 radar could patrol the west coast out to and 

 beyond the 200-mile fishing zone once every 4 

 hours (see figure 13). For satellite sur- 

 veillance, the National Aeronautics and Space 

 Administration (NASA) has estimated that 



Figure 13 



Useful Surveillance Coverage by a 

 State-of-the-Art Microwave Radar 

 on a 70-kft Altitude Aircraft 



Coast 

 Line 



Source: Stanford Research Institute 



twice daily imaging of the entire U.S. fishery 

 zone could be provided by eight satellites. 



Microwave radar technology operated from 

 satellites is being developed by the Depart- 

 ment of Defense and NASA and may be 

 available within 10 years. The system has the 

 potential to supplement or supplant airborne 



51 



