The SUMO ship detection software for satellite radar images : short installation and user guide

This is a brief manual for the SUMO software. SUMO is a software package for semi- or fully-automatic ship detection in satellite SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) images, for experimental use. It can work on images from most of the recent and contemporary satellite SARs, across a range of radar frequencies and resolutions. It has been developed at European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) over the last 15 years, and has been extensively tested, demonstrated and validated. Ship detection from satellite images is used for maritime spatial planning, fisheries control, pollution control, maritime border control, counter-piracy, and other applications in the field of maritime safety, security and sustainability. The SUMO algorithm, that is behind the software, has recently been described in detail in a journal publication. This document describes the purpose of SUMO, how to compile the run-time code from the Java source code, how to start and run SUMO in interactive mode as well as in batch mode, and SUMO's input and output data. It also mentions known problems and the necessary maintenance. A list of questions and answers is attached in annex for quick reference. This manual is published together with the release of the SUMO software as open source under the FreeBSD two-clause license. The software was developed for use at JRC for R&D purposes and is released "as is".