# Satellite Imagery and AI: A New Era in Ocean Conservation, from Research to Deployment and Impact (Version. 2.0)

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.03207 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03207/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 23 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Dec 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.01497/) (2015)
- [Feature Pyramid Networks for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.03144/) (2016)
- [SatlasPretrain: A Large-Scale Dataset for Remote Sensing Image Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.15660/) (2022)
- [xView3-SAR: Detecting Dark Fishing Activity Using Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00897/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Galileo: Learning Global & Local Features of Many Remote Sensing Modalities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09356/) (2025)
- [Deploying Geospatial Foundation Models in the Real World: Lessons from WorldCereal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.00858/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing poses a global threat to ocean habitats. Publicly available satellite data offered by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), provide an opportunity to actively monitor this activity. Effectively leveraging satellite data for maritime conservation requires highly reliable machine learning models operating globally with minimal latency. This paper introduces four specialized computer vision models designed for a variety of sensors including Sentinel-1 (synthetic aperture radar), Sentinel-2 (optical imagery), Landsat 8-9 (optical imagery), and Suomi-NPP/NOAA-20/NOAA-21 (nighttime lights). It also presents best practices for developing and deploying global-scale real-time satellite based computer vision. All of the models are open sourced under permissive licenses. These models have all been deployed in Skylight, a real-time maritime monitoring platform, which is provided at no cost to users worldwide.