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Fishing boats are seen off Torishima island. Japan is planning to use new technologies to better monitor its waters. Photo: Handout

Japan developing AI, satellite-based surveillance system to track foreign ships in its waters

  • The new system, expected to be deployed in 2024, will scan Japan’s vast exclusive economic zone and flag any suspicious activity to the coastguard
  • The technology will allow it to better monitor the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, illegal fishing activity and North Korean ‘sanctions-busting’ vessels
Japan
Japan is developing a maritime surveillance system that will use artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced satellite technologies to identify and track foreign ships operating suspiciously close to its waters or that intrude into its territory.

The government is earmarking an initial 450 million yen (US$4.1 million) for the project under the third supplementary budget for fiscal 2020, with technology companies being invited to submit proposals for the system.

An analyst said Tokyo is finding it difficult to keep track of the vessels illegally entering its vast ocean territories.

“Japan’s resources are badly overstretched because it has such a huge amount of water to cover,” said Garren Mulloy, a professor of international relations at Daito Bunka University.

Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) covers more than 1.47 million square kilometres of the Pacific and is the eighth largest in the world. Its ocean territories are over 11 times the land area of the country.

“If they attempted to cover that much open ocean with patrol ships, aircraft, or even satellites or drones, it would be incredibly difficult and not a very efficient use of resources,” he told This Week in Asia.

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“But advances in AI in recent years mean that they are now able to scan many thousands of square kilometres of ocean by picking up anomalies,” Mulloy said.

Such anomalies could include vessels operating strangely just outside Japan’s EEZ, or ships that suddenly change course or turn off their transponders to disguise their movements.

The new Japanese monitoring system, which the Yomiuri newspaper reported will be demonstrated next year and should be deployed as early as 2024, will analyse vast amounts of data collected from satellites to determine the speed and direction of foreign ships. Any that show suspicious activity will be flagged for closer attention by the coastguard.

“This is cutting-edge stuff because AI is not usually used in this way and has only really been a usable resource for the last 15 years or so,” said Mulloy. “Something like this would have been invaluable back in the Cold War as the US tried to track Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic or the Pacific, but there was simply not enough computing power available at the time and no AI.”

The technology will permit the coastguard and, potentially, the Self-Defence Forces, to focus efforts far more closely on a small number of suspicious vessels at a time when the challenges to Japan’s sovereignty are increasing.

The primary area of concern for Tokyo, Mulloy said, are the islands of Okinawa Prefecture that China claims and refers to as the Diaoyu archipelago but Japan knows as the Senkakus.

There have been repeated intrusions into the waters of the uninhabited islands. Chinese coastguard vessels were identified close to them for 157 consecutive days until July 19, the longest uninterrupted period since the territory was bought from its private owners in September 2012.

Explainer | Japan’s territorial disputes: China, South Korea, Russia and more

Japan is also likely to use the system to monitor North Korean and other vessels carrying out at-sea transshipments of items that are banned under United Nations sanctions on Pyongyang, with Mulloy adding that Tokyo “wants to be front-and-centre in the international effort against sanctions-busting vessels”.

Another area that will benefit from the system will be efforts to counter illegal operations by foreign fishing vessels. There has been a sharp increase in the number of North Korean and Chinese boats identified on the Yamato Bank, a rich fishing ground within Japan’s EEZ.

Tokyo has issued exclusion orders to 80 Chinese fishing vessels suspected of illegally operating in Japanese waters in the first four months of the year, with the annual total expected to top the 138 orders issued last year.

And while tracking aircraft approaching Japan’s airspace with AI and satellites is more complicated, due to the speeds at which they travel and their greater manoeuvrability, experts such as Mulloy anticipate that Japan will look to enhance its new monitoring system to also track airborne threats.

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