The world has a serious case of Sea Blindness.
We don’t know what’s happening out there on the open seas—and that’s not just a gap in intelligence. It’s a gaping hole in our national security, economic stability, and environmental protection.
The System Is Lagging
For decades, we’ve relied on AIS (Automatic Identification System) to manage global shipping. Every ship over 15m broadcasts its identity, location, and course via VHF radio to coastal receivers.
The problem? AIS only works within 40 miles of land, it can be turned off, spoofed, or jammed, and 25,000 vessels at any moment are “dark”—moving with no signal, no accountability, and no oversight. These dark vessels are hiding everything from illegal fishing and narcotics trafficking, to sanctions evasion and espionage. And we’ve had no reliable way to track them in real time.
Outmatched by Scale
Let’s bring this home. The Irish EEZ is six times the size of Ireland’s landmass. Securing that with one or two patrol ships? Like finding a needle in a haystack—if the haystack were moving, invisible, and full of threats.
We’re talking about:
Critical infrastructure like undersea internet cables and gas pipelines—vulnerable, exposed, and under increasing surveillance from Critical infrastructure like undersea internet cables and gas pipelines—vulnerable, exposed, and under increasing surveillance from foreign “research vessels.”
A planned offshore wind boom that could power a major share of Europe—also vulnerable.
A shadow fleet of over 1,300 Russian and hundreds of Chinese ships operating with sophisticated submersibles, operating in silence.
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing—a $10 billion global issue and rampant in Irish waters.
Narcotics trafficking by fast boats and ship-to-ship transfers—$500 billion globally and over 90% undetected.
Oil smuggling, human trafficking, piracy, and environmental crimes—from toxic dumping to rust-bucket tankers with no safety checks.
The ocean has become a battleground. And we’re fighting blind.
The Mission: Real-Time Maritime Situational Awareness
To turn the tide, we need to see everything, everywhere, in real time.
That means layered intelligence—from seabed to space:
- Sonar sensors on pipelines and cables.
- Radar and RF detection from coastal bases, aircraft, and ships.
- Drones and SIGINT in the skies.
- And critically: real-time AI in orbit.
This is where Ubotica’s SPACE:AI changes the game.
From Space, In Real Time
Until now, satellites scanned the oceans like a robotic lawnmower—capturing petabytes of data, 90% of it useless, most of it delayed by days, stored in massive datacentres, processed far too late.
Ubotica’s SPACE:AI flips that model. We bring AI directly onboard the satellite, processing raw data at the moment of capture. Using inter-satellite links, we can deliver actionable insights to navies and coast guards in under 10 minutes.
This unlocks truly strategic intelligence—and here’s a real-world example that proves it.
Case Study: Shadow Fleet Activity East of Singapore
In a single image captured 100 km east of Singapore, Ubotica’s AI detected eight instances of ship-to-ship tanker transfers. These are textbook examples of sanctions evasion tactics used to obscure the origin of Iranian and Russian oil.
What’s staggering is not the activity itself, it’s the frequency. On nearly every day of observation in this region, SPACE:AI detects multiple occurrences. This isn’t a one-off, it’s a persistent network of illicit logistics in one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors.
Then, just 12 days later, a SAR image of the same region from our partner ICEYE told the same story.
Even in the dark, through clouds, the synthetic aperture radar reveals what optical can’t. We again see ship-to-ship transfers taking place—confirming that this floating “petrol station” for embargoed oil operates around the clock.
Dark Vessels, Deep Profiles
SPACE:AI doesn’t just detect ships—it builds deep vessel profiles using optical, radar, and hyperspectral data. For example, the vessel Luna Prime, flagged in this region, appears on a sanctioned list and has sailed under five different flags in just three years—a classic red flag for shadow fleet activity.
SPACE:AI can identify such vessels whether or not their AIS is active though AIS use is increasingly rare in these operations. Instead, our AI builds a persistent database of physical and spectral signatures, tracking sanctioned vessels over time. Even efforts to obscure identity, such as frequent paint job changes, are detected and matched by SPACE:AI’s onboard processing.
Once flagged, automated reports are generated for relevant vessels, enabling rapid escalation to authorities or allied assets—all without the need to downlink full-resolution imagery for manual analysis.
From Images to Interdiction
This isn’t just smarter analytics, it’s a strategic shift. NASA calls it “New Observing Strategies,” where satellites focus on solving specific problems, in real time.
Instead of asking, “What did we see yesterday?”, we’re now asking, “What’s happening right now, and what do we do next?”