A vessel goes dark, and tracking stops with it
AIS drops out for all sorts of reasons: equipment failure, poor reception, or a crew that would rather not be seen. The moment the signal stops, everything downstream stops with it. Nobody can say where the vessel is heading, when it will arrive, or which port it called at while it was quiet.
We predict from the vessel’s own history instead of its live signal. Past voyages, speed behaviour, headings, and the routes and ports that class of ship habitually uses feed one model that answers three questions at once: the most likely path from the last known position, the expected arrival time along it, and the ports it may have called at during the silence. The prediction horizon is configurable, so the same system serves a six-hour question and a six-day one.
Tracking continues through the gap instead of ending at it.