Ship detection and surveillance are of great significance in military and civilian domain

for which remote sensing technology serves as an efficient method.In recent years European Union has carried out a series of research on ship detection using remote sensing technology driven by fishery activity monitoring.Especially under the IMPAST and DECLIMS programs many research institutes within and outside European Union have been concentrated together.Through the two programs a series of methods on ship detection

classification and identification have been developed and in proved

state of the art and common problems in ship detection based on remote sensing have been found

and technical requirements for future SAR system are proposed.Besides

many ship detection and surveillance systems have been set up within European Union

including QinetiQ’s MaST

FFI’s Eldhuset

Kongsberg’s MeosView

JRC’s VDS

Kerguelen’s CLS and BOOST’s ship detection system

which are developed under IMPAST and DECLIMS programs

as well as several systems developed apart from those two programs such as ship detection system developed by DERA

Rome University and Alenia Aerospazio company.This paper introduces the composition and function of these systems in detail.In the end the paper analyzes the reference meaning for China of EU’s ship detection technology and system development.