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Detection of Fishing Boats in the Northwest Pacific Using Satellite Nighttime

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Article  in  DEStech Transactions on Computer Science and Engineering · July 2018

DOI: 10.12783/dtcse/cnai2018/24135

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2018 International Conference on Communication, Network and Artificial Intelligence (CNAI 2018)
ISBN: 978-1-60595-065-5

Detection of Fishing Boats in the Northwest Pacific Using

Satellite Nighttime Image

Hao TIAN1, Yang LIU1,*, Yong-Jun TIAN1, Guan-yu CHEN1, Jian-chao LI1,
Shigang LIU1, Lu-xin YAN1, Yuan LI2 and Long-Shan LIN2
1
College of Fisheries, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, China
2
Third Institute of Oceanography, state Oceanic Administration, Xiamen 361005, China
*Corresponding author

Keywords: Pacific saury, Fishing boat identification, Remote sensing, VIIRS/DNB.

Abstract. In recent years, Spatial and temporal dynamic monitoring of fishing boats has become an
important data source for understanding the distributional dynamics of fisheries and for combating
illegal fishing. Visible infrared imaging radiometer suite (VIIRS) Day / night band (DNB) night-
time remote sensing images can be used to monitor night fishing lights. In the study that we are
reporting here, spike detection and threshold segmentation techniques were used to identify Pacific
saury fishing boats employing night lights as fish attractors. GIS tools were then used to extract and
analyze the fishing boat position and operation status. The results show that the method proposed in
this study can effectively identify the location and operation status of Pacific saury fishing boats,
and provide useful information for further understanding the spatial distribution and dynamics of
Pacific saury fishing boats in the northwest Pacific region.

Introduction
Pacific saury (Cololabis saira) is one of the most important commercial pelagic fish species being
harvested in the northwestern Pacific Ocean region [1]. Saury maintain a depth of about 15m below
the sea surface during the daytime and ascend to the sea surface at night. Pacific saury fishing boats
attract and concentrate Pacific saury with strong lights, then capturing them with pole-mounted dip
nets. Pacific saury represent an economically important resouce for Chinese, Japanese, Russian and
Korean fisheries operating in the traditional saury fishing grounds northeast of Japan [2]. In 2014,
the catch of saury was 620,000 tons (statistics data from FAO).
As early as the 1970s, some scholars discovered that low light imaging detectors can serve to
monitor light-fishing boats [3]. The first system to globally monitor night lights was the defense
meteorological satellite program's operational “linescan” system (DMSP/OLS) [4]. Due to its low
resolution, fewer bands, and lack of sensor radiance calibration [5], DMSP/OLS data can only be
used for qualitative research and cannot be used for quantitative detection of the number of night-
time light-fishing boats. The US National Polar Orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite was launched on
October 28, 2011, carrying a visible infrared imaging radiometer suite (VIIRS). This VIIRS is a 22-
band visible/infrared sensor that offers a wider swath width (3,000 versus 2,330 km) [6]. NPP
crosses the equator at about 0130 and 1330 local time, with VIIRS covering the entire Earth twice
daily [7]. VIIRS also has a day/night band (DNB) that is sensitive to very low levels of nighttime
visible light such as may be produced by moonlight reflecting off low clouds, fog, dust, ash plumes,
and snow cover. In addition, VIIRS detects light emissions from cities, ships, oil flares, and lightning
flashes [8].

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Data and Methods

Satellite Data
Sensor data records (SDRs) used in this study are calibrated image files that provide the radiance
information of DNB. The spectral range of the DNB waveband is between 400 and 900 nm, which
allows it to collect the type of light coming from fishing boats [9]. The spatial resolution of DNB
data is 742m, and the original radiance unit is W/ (sr*cm-2) [10].
All the satellite data was downloaded from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), http://www.class.ncdc.noaa.gov. The DNB data was opened using ENVI 5.3. The Pacific
saury fishing boats were detected and extracted by ArcGIS 10.2.
Algorithm Flow

Data Preprocessing. The data preprocessing includes geographic lookup table (GLT) geometric
correction, data format conversion and contrast adjustment. The GLT geometric correction is the
first step to make each pixel of the original DNB data correspond to its latitude and longitude
coordinates. Then the DNB data format is converted into dat so that it can be opened by ArcGIS.
The cloud will not reflect the moon radiance and it will be difficult to detect when the moonlight is
weak. So the third step is adjusting the contrast of the DNB image to asertain whether or not there is
a cloud in the research area.
Data Selection. Because clouds and moonlight will affect the identification of saury fishing boats
[11], we selected the cloudless and new moon nighttime data in study area. This paper uses the
DNB images of October 11th, 2016 at 00:27:56 as an example to illustrate the detection method of
the saury fishing boats (Figure 1).

Figure 1. DNB IMAGE.

Removing Lightning. The lightning in the VIIRS DNB data is a horizontal light stripe with a
width of more than 16 lines, usually more than 24 pixels long. Lightning will interfere with the
detection of a night-running saury fishing vessel. So removing the lightning in the VIIRS DNB
images to improve the detection accuracy of the fishing boat is necessary.

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 Calculation the Spike Median Index (SMI). In this study, the spike median index (SMI)
proposed by Elvidge et al.(2015) was used to enhance the difference between the lighting pixels
radiance value and the background pixels radiance value, thereby facilitating the detection and
extraction of saury night-light fishing boat information. The SMI image is obtained by subtracting
the amplified image from the median-filtered image.
Gray Image Conversion. In actual fishing of Pacific saury in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean,
the saury fishing boats usually have two states at night: fishing or moving. In this study, gray image
conversion was performed to discriminate the two operating conditions of the Pacific saury fishing
boats based on the brightness of the pixel. Firstly, we use log10 to increase the contrast of DNB
images and highlight light pixels [12]. According to the study of Cozzolion et al. (2016), the
radiance values of the pixels after log10 can converted to gray values (0 to 255)
Threshold Selection. Selecting an appropriate threshold value makes it possible to distinguish
between the fishing boats and the background pixels. According to the selection, SMI=0.7 and
SMI=9 are the thresholds we selecte.
Segmentation. Segmentation is a process that can classify the pixels of image by different
criteria [13]. The purpose of this study was to separate the saury light fishing boats from
background pixels, so we segmented the pixels whose values≥ threshold.
Reclassify. Because of the different operating status of the saury fishing boats, the fishing boats
detection was divided into two levels: strong detection represents the fishing boats that are catching
saury; weak detection represents the fishing boats are moving to find saury. Pixels whose SMI ≥ 0.7
are defined as weak detection while SMI ≥ 9 are defined as strong detection.
Vector File Extraction. Overlarge volume of DNB images has caused great difficulties for data
storage and use. In this study, the layer which contains the position information of the fishing vessel
was stored as a shp file.

Results

Gray Image Results

The gray image conversion is shown in figure 2 and the brightness of lighting pixels is clearly
divided into 2 levels: the brighter pixels may be the boats that are fishing and the darker pixels may
be the moving boats.

Figure 2. Gray image results, the light pixels are divided in two brightness, the brighter pixels are
fishing boats and the darker pixels are moving boats.

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Fishing Boats Detection Results
According to the different thresholds selected from quality grading, identified Pacific saury fishing
boats were extracted from DNB images. The results are shown in figure 3. At the time of 00:27:56
on October 11, 2016, the region we selected contains 77 strong detection points and 124 weak
detection points.

Figure 3. Fishing boats detection results, 77 fishing boats and 124 moving boats have been extracted.

Discussion
Our study has found that the VIIRS DNB images, while affected by cloud and moonlight radiance,
are nevertheless able to effectively identify nighttime light fishing boats under conditions of
sufficiently low moonlight intensity and low level of cloud cover. Although a cloud mask is able
effectively remove clouds, the information about the fishing boats blocked by those clouds will be
removed at the same time. At the full moon, moonlight reflected by clouds will also adversely affect
the detection of fishing boats [14]. However, Yamaguchi et al. (2016) found that the brightness and
temperature information contained in a DNB image and a short wave infrared image whose
wavelength is 3.7 μm can reduce the influence of partial cloud cover [15].
In monitoring Pacific saury fishing activity, it was found that the fishing boats had two
distinguishable kinds of operating conditions at night: fishing or moving. The two operating states
with different light emission brightness were confirmed in the gray image. This study finds and
verifies the distinction thresholds for these two operating states: SMI=0.7 is the threshold for
distinguishing between the marine background and moving state fishing boats; SMI=9 is the
distinguishing threshold for moving and fishing state of Pacific saury fishing boats.
The method proposed in this study was applied to DNB data in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean
on October 11, 2016 to detect the Pacific saury fishing boats at 00:27:56. The result is that in the
region we selected, the number of Pacific saury fishing boats in the fishing state was 77 and moving
state was 124. Strong fishing light in the DNB image will illuminate the surrounding area and form
false detections. Therefore, the number of weak detection in this study is large. The misdetection of
Pacific saury fishing boats caused by halos can be effectively eliminated combined with the vessel
monitoring system (VMS).

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Conclusion
Combined with the distribution range of the fish species and the fishing conditions, the DNB images
can be used to analyze the types of night-light fishing boats. There are two types of working status
for the Pacific saury fishing boats at night: fishing state and moving state. The two statuses exhibit
different brightness levels in the DNB image, and the brightness of the fishing state is higher.

Acknowledgment
Supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (3006000-841762015);
China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (187202); And the National Program on Global Change and
Air-Sea Interaction (GASI-02-PAC-YDspr/sum/aut)

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