• Journal of KIISE
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• v.43 no.8
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• pp.848-856
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• 2016

Seeking and recognizing maritime targets are very important tasks for maritime safety. While searching for maritime targets using radar is possible, recognition is conducted without automatic identification system, radio communicator or visibility. If this recognition is not feasible, radar operator must tediously recognize maritime targets using movement features on radar base on know-how and experience. In this paper, to support the radar operator's mission of continuous observation, we propose an algorithm for automatic recognition of an unknown ship using movement features on radar and a method of detecting potential ship related accidents. We extract features from contact range, course and speed of four types of vessels and evaluate the recognition accuracy using SVM and suggest a method of detecting potential ship related accidents through the algorithm. Experimentally, the resulting recognition accuracy is found to be more than 90% and presents the possibility of detecting potential ship related accidents through the algorithm using information of MV Sewol. This method is an effective way to support operator's know-how and experience in various circumstances and assist in detecting potential ship related accidents.