Automatic Speech Recognition for Maritime Situational Awareness

EMSAIR

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Automatic Speech Recognition for Maritime Situational Awareness

The project Enhanced Maritime Situational Awareness with Intelligent Automatic Speech Recognition (EMSAIR) involves the automatic evaluation of maritime radio traffic to quickly obtain and provide precise and essential information on dangerous situations, improving situational awareness. The project will run for one year, from January 2025 to December 2025.

Notably, radio communication is a critical component of informative and cooperative tasks between vessels during maritime operations. Indeed, radio communication contains valuable information on the maritime context, such as details on own and other vessels, weather situation, abnormal behaviour of vessels and persons, and any kind of sensitive content. The integration of radio communication with sensor data and other information provides a more complete situation awareness, supports identification of anomalies, and helps to improve the logging of situations for later analysis.

Figure, symbolic picture, AI-generated
Concept of maritime situational awareness tool
Credit:

https://www.canva.com

Contribution of the Institute for AI Safety and Security

Sensitive content can be misinterpreted or lost due to noise, accents, or other distortions. The Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology helps automating the communication process, improving real-time decision-making. This also introduces new security challenges regarding manipulation of analogical data that can undermine the ASR system's effectiveness. Failure to detect these manipulations can lead to catastrophic outcomes, such as collisions, failure to respond to distress calls, or manipulation of critical information during emergencies. The Institute for AI Safety and Security actively investigates the development of methods to mitigate the potential detrimental effects than external interventions may cause in worst-case scenarios.

Participating DLR institutes and facilities

Institute for AI Safety and Security

At the Institute for AI Safety & Security, we research and develop AI-related methods, processes, algorithms, technologies and execution and system environments. Our focus is on safe and standard-compliant AI, cyber security in open data and service ecosystems and AI, as well as autonomous mobility and logistics facilitation.

Institute for the Protection of Maritime Infrastructures

The Institute focuses on the resilience of maritime infrastructures and maritime safety technologies. It pursues the social mission of protecting critical infrastructures to ensure economic prosperity and stability.

Contact

Dr. Michael Karl

Head of Department
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Institute for AI Safety and Security
Safety-Critical Data Infrastructures
Rathausallee 12, 53757 Sankt Augustin
Germany

Karoline Bischof

Consultant Public Relations
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Institute for AI Safety and Security
Business Development and Strategy
Rathausallee 12, 53757 Sankt Augustin
Germany