Moon phase based threshold determination for VIIRS boat detection

Awareness of boats is a main issue in areas of fishery management, illegal fishing, and maritime traffic, etc. For the awareness, Automatic Identification System (AIS) and Vessel-Pass System (V-PASS) have been widely used to collect the boat-related information. However, only using these systems makes it difficult to collect the accurate information. Recently, satellite-based data has been increasingly used as a cooperative system. In 2015, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) developed a boat detection algorithm using Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day & Night Band (DNB) data. Although the detections have been widely utilized in many publications, it is difficult to estimate the night-time fishing boats immediately. Particularly, it is difficult to estimate the threshold due to the lunar irradiation effect. This effect must be corrected to apply a single specific threshold. In this study, the moon phase was considered as the main frequency of this effect. Considering the moon phase, relational expressions are derived and then used as offsets for relative correction. After the correction, it shows a significant reduction in the standard deviation of the threshold compared to the threshold of NOAA. Through the correction, this study can set a constant threshold every day without determination of different thresholds. In conclusion, this study can achieve the detection applying the single specific threshold regardless of the moon phase.