Computer system and method for maritime surveillance and satellite-based earth observation of objects using synthetic aperture radar image matching

A computer system for computer vision-based maritime surveillance and identification of unknown vessels, the system comprising:

• at least one data storage device storing:
• a database of known synthetic aperture radar (“SAR”) satellite images each containing a known candidate vessel, each known candidate vessel having a known unique vessel identifier associated therewith that is stored in the database and which identifies the known candidate vessel;
• and
• an unknown SAR satellite image containing an unknown vessel;
• and
• at least one processor configured to execute a SAR-SAR image matcher, the SAR-SAR image matcher configured to:
• compare, via a neural network, the unknown SAR image to a plurality of known SAR image in the database, the comparing including determining a match likelihood score indicating a likelihood that the unknown vessel in the unknown SAR image and a known vessel in a respective known SAR image are a match;
• output, via the neural network, a ranked list of the known SAR images, the ranked list based on the determined match likelihood scores, wherein a higher ranking in the ranked list indicates a higher match likelihood score and greater likelihood of the known vessel in the known SAR image being the same as the unknown vessel in the unknown SAR image;
• and
• assign a known unique vessel identifier to the unknown SAR image based on the ranked list.