# Maritime object classification with SAR imagery using quantum kernel methods

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.11367 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.11367/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 28 of its 85 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Dec 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 28 of 28)

- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Rethinking the Inception Architecture for Computer Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.00567/) (2015)
- [You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02640/) (2015)
- [Xception: Deep Learning with Depthwise Separable Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02357/) (2016)
- [Supervised learning with quantum enhanced feature spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.11326/) (2018)
- [Power of data in quantum machine learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01938/) (2020)
- [A rigorous and robust quantum speed-up in supervised machine learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02174/) (2020)
- [Supervised quantum machine learning models are kernel methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.11020/) (2021)
- [Barren Plateaus in Variational Quantum Computing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.00781/) (2024)
- [Quantum machine learning beyond kernel methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.13162/) (2021)
- [The Inductive Bias of Quantum Kernels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03747/) (2021)
- [Exponential concentration in quantum kernel methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.11060/) (2022)
- [Training Quantum Embedding Kernels on Near-Term Quantum Computers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.02276/) (2021)
- [Towards understanding the power of quantum kernels in the NISQ era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16774/) (2021)
- [The SEN1-2 Dataset for Deep Learning in SAR-Optical Data Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.01569/) (2018)
- [Bandwidth Enables Generalization in Quantum Kernel Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.06686/) (2022)
- [Importance of Kernel Bandwidth in Quantum Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.05451/) (2021)
- [Quantum machine learning of large datasets using randomized measurements](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.01039/) (2021)
- [xView3-SAR: Detecting Dark Fishing Activity Using Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00897/) (2022)
- [The complexity of quantum support vector machines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00031/) (2022)
- [Quantum Kernel Methods under Scrutiny: A Benchmarking Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.04406/) (2024)
- [A Hyperparameter Study for Quantum Kernel Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11891/) (2023)
- [Target detection in synthetic aperture radar imagery: a state-of-the-art survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.04719/) (2018)
- [In Search of Quantum Advantage: Estimating the Number of Shots in Quantum Kernel Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15776/) (2024)
- [QSpeckleFilter: a Quantum Machine Learning approach for SAR speckle filtering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.01235/) (2024)
- [Learning out-of-time-ordered correlators with classical kernel methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.01592/) (2024)
- [Comparative Analysis of Quantum and Classical Support Vector Classifiers for Software Bug Prediction: An Exploratory Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.04690/) (2025)
- [Quantum Meets SAR: A Novel Range-Doppler Algorithm for Next-Gen Earth Observation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.01832/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing causes global economic losses of 10-25 billion USD annually and undermines marine sustainability and governance. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) provides reliable maritime surveillance under all weather and lighting conditions, but classifying small maritime objects in SAR imagery remains challenging. We investigate quantum machine learning for this task, focusing on quantum kernel methods (QKMs) applied to real and complex SAR chips extracted from the SARFish dataset. We tackle two binary classification problems, the first for distinguishing vessels from non-vessels, and the second for distinguishing fishing vessels from other types of vessels. We compare QKMs applied to real and complex SAR chips against classical Laplacian, RBF, and linear kernels applied to real SAR chips. We restrict the comparison to be between just kernel based models so that the comparison is as fair and meaningful as possible. Using noiseless numerical simulations of the quantum kernels, we find that with the real SAR chips, QKMs are capable of obtaining equal or better performance than the classical kernels in the best case. However, the specific quantum kernel used to encode the complex SAR data overfits and performs poorly. This work presents the first application of QKMs to maritime classification in SAR imagery and offers insight into the potential and current limitations of quantum-enhanced learning for maritime surveillance.