Evaluation of an automated vessel recognition system: case study in Port of Cristo

Abstract An automated vessel recognition system is a sophisticated technological solution for the automatic detection, identification, and classification of vessels in a maritime environment. This paper presents the evaluation of an automatic vessel recognition system implemented in the Port of Cristo on the island of Mallorca in Spain. The system employs PTZ camera and algorithm for image analysis and object recognition to accurately detect, classify and track different types of small vessels entering or departing from the port. The results revealed that the system successfully detected the event of the arrival and departure of vessels in 95% of the cases. In addition, the system was able to identify the vessel by recognizing the registration number in 75.81% of the cases and classifying the vessel type in 89.07% of the cases. The paper presents the SWOT analysis based on the knowledge and experience gained during the testing period.