• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.45-56
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• 2022

The Ieodo Ocean Research Station (IORS) lies between the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) boundaries of Korea, Japan, and China. The geographical positioning of the IORS makes it ideal for monitoring ships in the area. In this study, we introduce ship monitoring results by Automatic Identification System (AIS) and the Broadband 3G^TM radar, which has been developed for use in small ships using the Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) technique. AIS and FMCW radar data were collected at IORS from November 23th to 30th, 2013. The acquired FMCW radar data was converted to 2-D binary image format over pre-processing, including the internal and external noise filtering. The ship positions detected by FMCW radar images were passed into a tracking algorithm. We then compared the detection and tracking results from FMCW radar with AIS information and found that they were relatively well matched. Tracking performance is especially good when ships are across from each other. The results also show good monitoring capability for small fishing ships, even those not equipped with AIS or with a dysfunctional AIS.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.311-321
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• 2007

The diffuse attenuation coefficient for down-welling irradiance $K_d({\lambda})$, which is the propagation of down-welling irradiance at wavelength ${\lambda}$ from surface to a depth (z) in the ocean, and underwater visibility are important optical parameters for ocean studies. There have been several studies on $K_d({\lambda})$ and underwater visibility around the world, but only a few studies have focused on these properties in the Korean sea. Therefore, in the present study, we studied $K_d({\lambda})$ and underwater visibility around the coastal area of the Yellow Sea, and developed $K_d({\lambda})$ and underwater visibility algorithms for ocean color satellite sensor. For this research we conducted a field campaign around the Yellow Sea from $19{\sim}22$ September, 2006 and there we obtained a set of ocean optical and environmental data. From these datasets the $K_d({\lambda})$ and underwater visibility algorithms were empirically derived and compared with the existing NASA SeaWiFS $K_d({\lambda})$ algorithm and NRL (Naval Research Laboratory) underwater visibility algorithm. Such comparisons over a turbid area showed small difference in the $K_d({\lambda})$ algorithm and constants of our result for underwater visibility algorithm showed slightly higher values.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.601-610
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• 2013

As a standard water clarity variable, the vertical underwater visibility, called Secchi depth, is estimated with ocean color satellite data. In the present study, Moderate Resolvtion Imaging Spectradiometer (MODIS) data are used to measure the Secchi depth which is a useful indicator of ocean transparency for estimating the water quality and productivity. To estimate the Secchi depth $Z_v$, the empirical regression model is developed based on the satellite optical data and in-situ data. In the previous study, a semi-analytical algorithm for estimating $Z_v$ was developed and validated for Case 1 and 2 waters in both coastal and oceanic waters using extensive sets of satellite and in-situ data. The algorithm uses the vertical diffuse attenuation coefficient, $K_d$($m^{-1}$) and the beam attenuation coefficient, c($m^{-1}$) obtained from satellite ocean color data to estimate $Z_v$. In this study, the semi-analytical algorithm is validated using temporal MODIS data and in-situ data over the Yellow, Southern and East Seas including Case 1 and 2 waters. Using total 156 matching data, MODIS $Z_v$ data showed about 3.6m RMSE value and 1.7m bias value. The $Z_v$ values of the East Sea and Southern Sea showed higher RMSE than the Yellow Sea. Although the semi-analytical algorithm used the fixed coupling constant (= 6.0) transformed from Inherent Optical Properties (IOP) and Apparent Optical Properties (AOP) to Secchi depth, various coupling constants are needed for different sea types and water depth for the optimum estimation of $Z_v$.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.5_3
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• pp.909-919
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• 2023

Benthic marine invertebrates, the invertebrates living on the bottom of the ocean, are an essential component of the marine ecosystem, but excessive reproduction of invertebrate grazers or pirate creatures can cause damage to the coastal fishery ecosystem. In this study, we compared and evaluated You Only Look Once Version 7 (YOLOv7), the most widely used deep learning model for real-time object detection, and detection tansformer (DETR), a transformer-based model, using underwater images for benthic marine invertebratesin the coasts of South Korea. YOLOv7 showed a mean average precision at 0.5 (mAP@0.5) of 0.899, and DETR showed an mAP@0.5 of 0.862, which implies that YOLOv7 is more appropriate for object detection of various sizes. This is because YOLOv7 generates the bounding boxes at multiple scales that can help detect small objects. Both models had a processing speed of more than 30 frames persecond (FPS),so it is expected that real-time object detection from the images provided by divers and underwater drones will be possible. The proposed method can be used to prevent and restore damage to coastal fisheries ecosystems, such as rescuing invertebrate grazers and creating sea forests to prevent ocean desertification.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.6_1
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• pp.1255-1272
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• 2023

Satellite-based chlorophyll-a concentration, produced as a long-term time series, is crucial for global climate change research. The production of data without gaps through the merging of time-synthesized or multi-satellite data is essential. However, studies related to satellite-based chlorophyll-a concentration in the waters around the Korean Peninsula have mainly focused on evaluating seasonal characteristics or proposing algorithms suitable for research areas using a single ocean color sensor. In this study, a merging dataset of remote sensing reflectance from the geostationary sensor GOCI-II and polar-orbiting sensors (MODIS, VIIRS, OLCI) was utilized to achieve high spatial coverage of chlorophyll-a concentration in the waters around the Korean Peninsula. The spatial coverage in the results of this study increased by approximately 30% compared to polar-orbiting sensor data, effectively compensating for gaps caused by clouds. Additionally, we aimed to quantitatively assess accuracy through comparison with global chlorophyll-a composite data provided by Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) and GlobColour, along with in-situ observation data. However, due to the limited number of in-situ observation data, we could not provide statistically significant results. Nevertheless, we observed a tendency for underestimation compared to global data. Furthermore, for the evaluation of practical applications in response to marine disasters such as red tides, we qualitatively compared our results with a case of a red tide in the East Sea in 2013. The results showed similarities to OC-CCI rather than standalone geostationary sensor results. Through this study, we plan to use the generated data for future research in artificial intelligence models for prediction and anomaly utilization. It is anticipated that the results will be beneficial for monitoring chlorophyll-a events in the coastal waters around Korea.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.277-284
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• 2020

Underwater acoustics, which is the study of phenomena related to sound waves in water, has been applied mainly in research on the use of sound navigation and range (SONAR) systems for communication, target detection, investigation of marine resources and environments, and noise measurement and analysis. The main objective of underwater acoustic remote sensing is to obtain information on a target object indirectly by using acoustic data. Presently, various types of machine learning techniques are being widely used to extract information from acoustic data. The machine learning techniques typically used in underwater acoustics and their applications in passive SONAR systems were reviewed in the first two parts of this work (Yang et al., 2020a; Yang et al., 2020b). As a follow-up, this paper reviews machine learning applications in SONAR signal processing with a focus on active target detection and classification.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.6_2
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• pp.1615-1633
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• 2023

Sargassum horneri is one of the floating algae in the sea, which breeds in large quantities in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea and then flows into the coast of Republic of Korea, causing various problems such as destroying the environment and damaging fish farms. In order to effectively prevent damage and preserve the coastal environment, the development of Sargassum horneri detection algorithms using satellite-based remote sensing technology has been actively developed. However, incorrect detection information causes an increase in the moving distance of ships collecting Sargassum horneri and confusion in the response of related local governments or institutions,so it is very important to minimize false detections when producing Sargassum horneri spatial information. This study applied technology to automatically remove false detection results using the GOCI-II-based Sargassum horneri detection algorithm of the National Ocean Satellite Center (NOSC) of the Korea Hydrographic and Oceanography Agency (KHOA). Based on the results of analyzing the causes of major false detection results, it includes a process of removing linear and sporadic false detections and green algae that occurs in large quantities along the coast of China in spring and summer by considering them as false detections. The technology to automatically remove false detection was applied to the dates when Sargassum horneri occurred from February 24 to June 25, 2022. Visual assessment results were generated using mid-resolution satellite images, qualitative and quantitative evaluations were performed. Linear false detection results were completely removed, and most of the sporadic and green algae false detection results that affected the distribution were removed. Even after the automatic false detection removal process, it was possible to confirm the distribution area of Sargassum horneri compared to the visual assessment results, and the accuracy and precision calculated using the binary classification model averaged 97.73% and 95.4%, respectively. Recall value was very low at 29.03%, which is presumed to be due to the effect of Sargassum horneri movement due to the observation time discrepancy between GOCI-II and mid-resolution satellite images, differences in spatial resolution, location deviation by orthocorrection, and cloud masking. The results of this study's removal of false detections of Sargassum horneri can determine the spatial distribution status in near real-time, but there are limitations in accurately estimating biomass. Therefore, continuous research on upgrading the Sargassum horneri monitoring system must be conducted to use it as data for establishing future Sargassum horneri response plans.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 1998.09a
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• pp.89-94
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• 1998

Seasonal variation of attenuation coefficient spectra in Japan sea was extracted from underwater radiance/irradiance spectra observed by a moored buoy system developed by National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). The buoy was deployed 9 months from August 31, 1996 to June 1, 1997. Throughout this period, it was collecting downward irradiance and upward radiance spectra under water at the depth of 1.5m and 6.5m everyday. The dairy averaged diffused attenuation coefficient spectra and underwater reflectance spectra were calculated. The results were compared with the absorption spectra of filtered samples obtained by validation cruises, which carried out 5 times during the moored period. Also, the natural fluorescence of chlorophyll a were extracted from the upward radiance spectra observed at 1.5m depth. The seasonal variation of the calculated attenuation coefficient spectra and the natural fluorescence were examined. The result shows a weak blooming of phytoplankton on November and a large blooming on April.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.6_1
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• pp.1463-1478
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• 2022

Maritime transport accounts for 99.7% of the exports and imports of the Republic of Korea; therefore, developing a vessel monitoring system for efficient operation is of significant interest. Several studies have focused on tracking and monitoring vessel movements based on automatic identification system (AIS) data; however, ships without AIS have limited monitoring and tracking ability. High-resolution optical satellite images can provide the missing layer of information in AIS-based monitoring systems because they can identify non-AIS vessels and small ships over a wide range. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate vessel monitoring and small vessel classification systems using high-resolution optical satellite images. This study examined the possibility of developing ship monitoring systems using Compact Advanced Satellite 500-1 (CAS500-1) satellite images by first training a deep learning model using satellite image data and then performing detection in other images. To determine the effectiveness of the proposed method, the learning data was acquired from ships in the Yellow Sea and its major ports, and the detection model was established using the You Only Look Once (YOLO) algorithm. The ship detection performance was evaluated for a domestic and an international port. The results obtained using the detection model in ships in the anchorage and berth areas were compared with the ship classification information obtained using AIS, and an accuracy of 85.5% and 70% was achieved using domestic and international classification models, respectively. The results indicate that high-resolution satellite images can be used in mooring ships for vessel monitoring. The developed approach can potentially be used in vessel tracking and monitoring systems at major ports around the world if the accuracy of the detection model is improved through continuous learning data construction.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.5_4
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• pp.1173-1183
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• 2023

Over the past 20 years, Korea's overall import and export cargo volume has increased at an average annual rate of approximately 5.3%. About 99% of the cargo is still being transported by sea. Due to recent increases in maritime cargo volume, congestion in maritime logistics has become challenging due to factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and conflicts. Continuous monitoring of ports has become crucial. Various ground observation systems and Automatic Identification System (AIS) data have been utilized for monitoring ports and conducting numerous preliminary studies for the efficient operation of container terminals and cargo volume prediction. However, small and developing countries' ports face difficulties in monitoring due to environmental issues and aging infrastructure compared to large ports. Recently, with the increasing utility of artificial satellites, preliminary studies have been conducted using satellite imagery for continuous maritime cargo data collection and establishing ocean monitoring systems in vast and hard-to-reach areas. This study aims to visually detect ships docked at berths in the Busan New Port using high-resolution satellite imagery and quantitatively evaluate berth utilization rates. By utilizing high-resolution satellite imagery from Compact Advanced Satellite 500-1 (CAS500-1), Korea Multi-Purpose satellite-3 (KOMPSAT-3), PlanetScope, and Sentinel-2A, ships docked within the port berths were visually detected. The berth utilization rate was calculated using the total number of ships that could be docked at the berths. The results showed variations in berth utilization rates on June 2, 2022, with values of 0.67, 0.7, and 0.59, indicating fluctuations based on the time of satellite image capture. On June 3, 2022, the value remained at 0.7, signifying a consistent berth utilization rate despite changes in ship types. A higher berth utilization rate indicates active operations at the berth. This information can assist in basic planning for new ship operation schedules, as congested berths can lead to longer waiting times for ships in anchorages, potentially resulting in increased freight rates. The duration of operations at berths can vary from several hours to several days. The results of calculating changes in ships at berths based on differences in satellite image capture times, even with a time difference of 4 minutes and 49 seconds, demonstrated variations in ship presence. With short observation intervals and the utilization of high-resolution satellite imagery, continuous monitoring within ports can be achieved. Additionally, utilizing satellite imagery to monitor changes in ships at berths in minute increments could prove useful for small and developing country ports where harbor management is not well-established, offering valuable insights and solutions.