Integrated Maritime Data Environment - IMDatE

The Integrated Maritime Data Environment (IMDatE) is a technical framework currently under development. In future, it will combine and process data from EMSA's maritime applications (SSN, CSN, LRIT, THETIS) and other external sources to provide a more complete maritime picture to users.

What it does

A number of pilot projects have been established to explore the possibility of adding new streams of data to the existing maritime picture provided by the Agency, such as Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) data and Satellite AIS (S-AIS) data. The initiation of these projects already indicates that the existing EMSA technical platform needs to be upgraded in order to provide additional functionalities.

IMDatE will combine different data sources to provide a complete near real-time maritime picture. This will include, as a minimum, AIS, LRIT, Satellite AIS, coastal radar, VMS, and Earth Observation data. IMDatE will provide data fusion functionality in order to provide enhanced information from the combination of data sources.

It will provide the ability to grant access to different data sets and services according to individual user access rights. These may be delivered via a user friendly web interface or distributed automatically to authorised external systems.

1. Integrated Ship Profile Service - This service will provide a combined view of all information related to a ship or fleet based on information available in the different systems which are connected to the IMDatE.

2. Area Centric Service - This service will provide a complete maritime and oceanographic picture of a selected area, built-up from different layers of information, such as ship traffic data (full range of available ship position reports), satellite SAR picture of the defined area, optical image of the area, weather forecast associated to the area, oceanographic data (currents, waves, sea temperature, algae, etc).

3. Maritime Surveillance Service - This service will allow users to analyse all available ship traffic information in order to identify activities of interest for the purposes of Maritime Surveillance activities.

4. EU Common Maritime Space Monitoring Service - This specific service will support the implementation of EU Common Maritime Space (CMS) applications. In particular, the service will monitor ships engaged in EU (coastal) trade and ships (ferries and coasters) engaged in scheduled and/or regular services between EU ports. 

In October 2009, the European Commission issued a Communication on the integration of maritime surveillance [Link COM(2009)538)] noting the need for “a more interoperable surveillance system to bring together existing monitoring and tracking systems used for maritime safety and security, protection of the marine environment, fisheries control, control of external borders and other law enforcement activities”. The development of IMDatE will go some way towards addressing this need. IMDatE also in line with the objectives of EMSA as detailed in recent Work Programmes and in the 5 Year Strategy.

In addition, a number of pilot projects have been established to explore the possibility of adding new streams of data to the existing maritime picture provided by the Agency, such as Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) data, coastal radar data and Satellite AIS (S-AIS) data. The initiation of these projects already indicates that the existing EMSA technical platform upgrading in order to provide additional functionalities.