Identification of ships and platforms at sea during nighttime and in poor visibility

Within the Bonn Agreement distinct organisations have been performing routine surveillance flights over the North Sea with specially equipped aircraft for several years. The equipment mainly consists of Side Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR), Ultra Violet/Infrared linescanner (UV/IR) and photocameras. This so called remote sensing system provided the authorities with information concerning pollutions. Occasionally suspected offenders were detected and sometimes identified. Even under circumstances of bad visibility or nighttime, the SLAR proved the ability of detecting pollutions. However no system was capable of identifying the suspected polluter under given conditions. Inquiries in The Netherlands were made to find equipment which have the ability to identify the name and other registrations from suspected source of pollution under conditions at nighttime or in poor visibility from an aircraft flying at an altitude between 100 and 500 metres with an average speed of 180 km/h.