Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The aim of the PASSAGES (Protection & Advanced Surveillance System for the Arctic : Green, Efficient, Secure) research project is to determine new ways to monitor shipping traffic in the Canadian Arctic using multiple sensors and advanced analytics. As the ice melts more every year, there is the possibility of more traffic up North associated with various activities such as cruise ship tourism, seabed mining, and offshore oil and gas development. It is important to monitor the traffic using multiple sensors, whether land-based, areal, underwater or satellite based, so that the appropriate agencies can plan ahead in case of maritime accidents or spills or transiting illegitimate vessels. Through this project, our industry partners, exactEarth Ltd. and CASSIDIAN, will be collaborating with researchers at Dalhousie University and at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany to explore new sensor technologies, analysis methods, and systems integration options, resulting in multiple benefits: business opportunities for new products and services in this domain for our partners; improved protection for the Canadian Arctic Ocean benefitting our northern residents and enhancing economic opportunities for northern development for the country as a whole; new theoretical developments in the fields of multi-sensor fusion and shipping pattern analysis. The specific role of Dalhousie University is to find novel ways to use the improved fused data sources to create models for typical ship behaviour, anomaly detection, and traffic projection models. Furthermore, the risk of increased shipping in the north can also be modeled using this new information, which will help balance the need to protect the environment with the drive to more fully develop the area. The new methods and technologies that we develop will also create opportunities to apply the results to other parts of the arctic and elsewhere in the world.