51ÁÔÆæ

By Amirul Salam Hasan, Corporate Communication office

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51ÁÔÆæ (51ÁÔÆæ) further reinforced its position as a leader in marine technology innovation when its researcher recently introduced a high-impact research product.

Associate Professor Dr. Ahmad Faisal Mohamad Ayob unveiled the product, the Sea to Space Project: Ship Tracker, at the Defence Services Asia (DSA) 2026 and National Security Asia (NATSEC) 2026 exhibitions, held at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC) from 20 to 23 April 2026.

ShipTracker, the flagship maritime product within the broader Sea to Space initiative, is a real-time monitoring platform that displays vessel movements across the globe through an interactive map powered by Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. The platform currently observes more than 100,000 vessels worldwide, providing live position, speed, course, and operational status, together with vessel particulars such as type, dimensions, flag state, voyage destination, and estimated time of arrival. Users can filter the live map by vessel category, follow individual ships, and review aggregated traffic patterns at major chokepoints including the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Hormuz, and the South China Sea.

Beyond live tracking, ShipTracker also hosts the Internet Ship Database (ISDB), a publicly accessible repository of vessel records, alongside a growing series of peer-quality research articles on AIS data quality, fleet composition, port intelligence, voyage analysis, and Marine Traffic Risk Assessment. The platform is offered with a free public tier, with advanced research and reporting capabilities available through its companion service, mtra (Marine Traffic Risk Assessment).

“Sea to Space brings together AIS, satellite tracking, and the broader maritime data ecosystem into a single situational-awareness platform that is built and maintained from Malaysia,” said Dr. Ahmad Faisal, the project founder and a researcher at 51ÁÔÆæ’s Faculty of Ocean Engineering Technology.

“Our objective is to demonstrate that high-impact maritime intelligence products of the kind that defence agencies, port authorities, and energy operators rely on can be designed, validated, and deployed by a Malaysian research team, using local expertise and on Malaysian infrastructure.”

51ÁÔÆæ’s participation at the event, which was also attended by nine public universities presenting twelve products, affirms the university’s commitment to advancing innovation grounded in marine technology. The platform also serves as an open scientific resource for the wider research community. Methodology notes, such as the recently published technical paper on Seapath, the platform’s coastline-aware track interpolation algorithm, are released under open access at the ShipTracker articles portal.

ShipTracker is freely accessible at https://shiptracker.seatospace.com. The Marine Traffic Risk Assessment companion service, mtra, is available at https://mtra.seatospace.com. The platform is owned by VSG Labs Sdn. Bhd., a Malaysian deep-tech startup spun out of 51ÁÔÆæ (51ÁÔÆæ) and founded by Dr. Ahmad Faisal Mohamad Ayob, and is part of the broader Sea to Space initiative.