In recent years, unidentified vessels have frequently intruded into Taiwan's territorial waters. Since 2024, multiple small Chinese-flagged vessels without AIS have attempted nighttime infiltration, seriously impacting port security and homeland defense under geopolitical pressures. Existing monitoring mechanisms are clearly insufficient; there is an urgent need to integrate real-time detection and data early-warning functions and establish a smart vessel monitoring system to ensure port navigation order and national security.

This project will deploy unidentified vessel detection systems at Taiwan's seven major international commercial ports (Keelung, Taipei, Su'ao, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Anping, and Hualien). Using AI image recognition to detect vessels entering port and identify key features, the functions, scope, benefits, and schedule are described as follows:

• Planned functions: Provide an effective and comprehensive unidentified vessel detection solution that can identify and track vessels during daytime to ensure port safety.

1. Real-time detection of unidentified vessels: Immediately detect unauthorized or unidentified vessels as they enter the port's main fairway from outside the harbor entrance.
2. Integration of multi-source information: Combine camera image recognition with AIS data and other information sources; subsequently, a historical vessel database may be established and used for comparison under a separate project as needed by TIPC to improve detection accuracy.
3. Provision of timely information: After a vessel enters port, the system identifies the vessel and records related information in a database for VTS access and judgment, enabling relevant units to respond in a timely manner.
4. Continuous tracking of vessel movements: The system continuously tracks the movements of unidentified vessels within designated areas and provides information such as latitude/longitude position, vessel length, and vessel type to the VTS system for real-time access.
5. Enhanced port safety management effectiveness: Through deployment of this system, comprehensively enhance port safety management effectiveness and reduce potential threats that unidentified vessels pose to ports.

•  Project scope: Cameras are installed around the main vessel entry fairway, with the main entry fairway as the detection range, monitoring from the harbor entrance to the port-entry line, or within other designated ranges.
• Implementation benefits: Through unidentified vessel detection systems, achieve real-time alerts, enhance port management effectiveness, and strengthen vessel safety monitoring in commercial port areas. AI model training and data collection are currently underway at each commercial port, with alert system connectivity verified to ensure timely and effective notification of all relevant units.
• Deployment schedule:

1. Each commercial port was completed by June 2026.
2. Each commercial port will subsequently make rolling adjustments and refinements based on actual use and operational needs to improve system detection performance and practical applicability, and through continuous AI model training and optimization, gradually perfect unidentified vessel identification and early-warning mechanisms.