UAV Maritime Application Manual

With the development of the economy, China's maritime industry is showing diversified trends. The maritime sector's regulatory capabilities are facing great challenges and drones are very suitable for application in maritime systems. This paper first discusses the application of drones in maritime systems. Construction demand for man-machine maritime cruise base â–¼

Maritime business

Drone function task

mission details

Daily cruise

Regular inspection

Regular daily inspections are carried out within the jurisdiction, including key areas such as the super-aviation area, prohibited area, traffic control area and yacht area of ​​the port area.

Night tour

Night smuggling is curbed by irregular night patrols.

Ice cruise

Ice cruising, detecting the freezing range of the ice zone, etc.

Oilfield operation monitoring

Cooperate with sea patrol boat to monitor oilfield operation vessels

Used as a VHF air relay

Due to the short communication distance between the ship-borne VHF and the shore base of the sea cruise ship, the UAV is required to carry VHF relay equipment and cruise with the boat.

Cruise monitoring with sea patrol boats

The sea patrol boat is slow in cruising and cannot observe the situation of unidentified vessels outside the line of sight. It can use the shipborne takeoff and landing drone to expand the scope of investigation.

Nautical security

Regular inspection of navigation aids

Conduct regular cruise monitoring of the navigation mark to detect the presence or absence of damage to the navigation mark, whether it is blocked by dirt, or whether the vessel is docked, etc.

Lighthouse ice age feeding

The drone carries the battery, living materials, etc., arrives at the lighthouse location, and delivers accurate delivery.

Dangerous pipe antifouling

Oil spill, pollution accident monitoring and evidence collection

Utilizing drones for emergency oil and chemical accidents, the drone should be able to arrive at the scene of the accident within the specified time and pass the scene to the command center.

Joint risk forensics at sea

For dangerous sites at sea, it is necessary to conduct ship-UAV joint investigation and evidence collection and positioning, and the drone can play a role in expanding the scope of search for boats.

Emergency search and rescue

Search location, accident investigation

The accident location is determined by the UAV's own positioning system and the airborne AIS, and the location is transmitted back to the emergency search and rescue center; the scene of the accident can be photographed, and the scene is transmitted back to the search and rescue center to facilitate the staff to understand the situation.

Relief supplies

Food, small life-saving buoys, GPS buoys, etc. can be delivered by drones

Transforming float

An automatic inflator is installed on the drone, a standard sea rescue signal and a position identification signal are set, and if necessary, it can be changed from the air into the sea to become a life-saving float.

Cable transmission

Utilizing drones that can take off and land on the deck of the boat, the ropes can be carried from the search and rescue deck to the accident vessel and delivered.


According to the responsibilities of China's maritime department and the functional advantages of drones, the application requirements of drones in maritime missions are mainly reflected in three aspects:

(1) Used for daily inspections in port areas and sea areas


China has nearly 3 million square kilometers of jurisdictional waters, and implements safety supervision duties in such a vast sea area. Conventional patrol vessels have low speed, small field of view, long interval between inspections, and are subject to natural conditions.

Defects such as large degrees. At the same distance, the patrol radiation area of ​​the aircraft is about 12 times that of the ship, and the patrol effect is much higher than that of the ship. Therefore, using the drone to conduct daily patrols in the port area and the sea area can effectively improve the cruising efficiency and save manpower. , fuel and other costs. By using air cruise, you can quickly find the unfavorable factors that threaten the navigation safety of the ship, check it in time, and take countermeasures to eliminate hidden dangers. Of course, if the form of a ship-borne helicopter is adopted, it is possible to exert their respective advantages through the cooperation of ships and machines, and greatly enhance the flexibility of performing tasks.

(2) Emergency investigation and evidence collection for ship collision and sewage discharge and oil spill incidents

When a ship collision or sewage accident occurs in the sea area, it is necessary to conduct on-site investigation and evidence collection in a timely manner. At present, the speed of high-speed ships and large container ships exceeds 28Kn (about 50km/h), and the speed of conventional patrol ships is generally lower than these ships, and it is impossible to trace the ship that fled the scene. At present, the speed of domestic UAVs generally exceeds 100km/h, which can ensure the timeliness of investigations, use on-board cameras and other equipment to quickly carry out on-site forensics, and return the results to the emergency command center.

The first few hours after the occurrence of oil spills on the sea is the most effective time to act, otherwise it will be difficult to remove after the spread. The aircraft can use oil-borne special equipment to monitor and monitor the oil spills in important sea areas, quickly determine the location of the source of water discharge, identify and measure underwater pollutants, and be affected by daytime, nighttime, weather and sea conditions, and if necessary, Airborne chemical spray equipment is directly involved in controlling and clearing oil spill response operations.

(3) Emergency search and rescue for marine accidents

In the process of search and rescue of people in distress at sea, the sea conditions are usually relatively bad. It is difficult for the rescue ship to determine the exact location of the ship in distress, so that it is impossible to quickly approach the ship in distress for assistance. UAVs have the advantage of being less affected by sea conditions and having a wide field of vision. They can quickly search for targets, guide and direct rescue ships to participate in rescue, and directly rescue, so that the rescue power is greatly improved.

According to the various tasks that the current maritime system has carried out and the functional characteristics of the drone, this paper classifies the maritime operations such as daily cruise, maritime security, dangerous pipeline anti-pollution, emergency search and rescue, and gives the drone in the maritime system. Application requirements are shown in Table 1.

Joint three-dimensional cruise network of the maritime system

After the introduction of drones in the maritime system, the original maritime law enforcement measures will be expanded. How to effectively use the UAV, establish the cooperation and coordination mechanism between the UAV and the existing maritime forces, and form a three-dimensional maritime supervision network model of sea, land and air is a subject worthy of study. The cruise forces included in the three-dimensional maritime surveillance network are: 1) static electronic systems: including the original CCTV, VTS, and AIS systems; 2) airpower: including drones, manned helicopters, etc.; 3) sea power: sea Cruise boat, etc. This paper envisages two typical maritime mission execution scenarios to illustrate the implementation of the drone with other maritime forces.


Scene 1: Joint Dangerous forensics at Sea
UAV Maritime Application Manual







Utilizing drones for joint risk identification at sea

When a dangerous accident at sea occurs, the drone is required to cooperate with the cruise ship for joint forensics. The execution process of the mission is as shown in the figure. After receiving the dangerous alarm, the shore-based command center dispatches the drone to the destination for investigation and evidence collection (the emergency drone may take off from the base or take off on the sea cruise ship), and the drone will The dangerous information is transmitted to the command center in real time, and the command center makes a judgment based on the size of the danger and decides the next search and rescue plan.

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