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The Integrated Coastal Surveillance System (ICSS) is a coastal surveillance system operated by India with the goal of protecting its coastline, ensure regional security, and to assist friendly navies by quickly detecting, locating and monitoring maritime activity in the Indian Ocean. The system was developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Bharat Electronics, and forms part of the National Command Control Communication and Intelligence System (NC3I). The core of the ICSS is a network of remote ground-based radar stations called the Coastal Surveillance Network (CSN). In addition to radars, stations are also fitted with optical sensors, electro-optical sensors, thermal imagers, cameras, meteorological systems, an Automatic Identification System (AIS), a distress alert transmission system (DATS), electronic warfare support measures, and very high frequency (VHF) radio communication system s. Although the ICSS was built primarily for coastal security, the system can also be used for vessel traffic management, harbour surveillance and navigation.

The Coastal Surveillance Radar is the primary sensor of the Integrated Coastal Surveillance System, due to which the ICSS itself is sometimes referred to as the Coastal Surveillance Radar System. Coastal Surveillance Radars operate round the clock in all weather conditions and are capable of detecting small vessels such as trawlers, dinghies, and fishing vessels. Data from the Coastal Surveillance Network is further supplemented by additional inputs from other sources such as the Vessel Traffic Management Systems (VTMS) located at major ports, Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT), and the Fishing Vessel Monitoring System. Data from coastal surveillance radar stations is transmitted in real-time to one of several Remote Operating Stations, which send the information to one of the four Joint Operations Centres (JOC) at Mumbai, Kochi, Visakhapatnam and Port Blair. The JOCs in turn feed data to the National Command Control Communication and Intelligence System (NC3I) operated by Gurugram-based Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC), which is the nodal agency for maritime data fusion.

The ICSS project originated from a proposal by a Group of Ministers set up to consider the recommendations of the Kargil Review Committee in 2000. The project was revived in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The Government of India approved the construction of 46 coastal radar stations and 16 command and control centers in February 2009. The first phase of the project was completed in December 2016. The second phase of 38 new coastal radar stations, 4 mobile surveillance stations, and 5 new command and control centres was approved in July 2018, and is expected to complete by the end of 2021. India has also proposed building 32 coastal surveillance radars in friendly Indian Ocean states. The first coastal surveillance radars outside India were established in Mauritius and Sri Lanka. The coastal surveillance system is currently operational in India, Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles and Sri Lanka.

History
The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) set up a Group of Ministers (GoM) on 17April 2000 to consider the recommendations in the Kargil Review Committee. The GoM consisted of the ministers of home affairs, defence, external affairs and finance. National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra was also assigned as a special guest to the meetings of the GoM and the Cabinet Secretariat provided help to the group. The GoM proposed setting up a network of surveillance radars along India's coastline to improve coastal and maritime security. However, little progress was made on the proposal. The project was revived in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, during which the 10 terrorists had reached Colaba, South Mumbai on board inflatable speedboats.

The CCS approved a plan to build static radars along India's coastline on 28 February 2009. The Indian Coast Guard was tasked with implementing the project including defining its scope and coordinating with the Indian Navy, the Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships (DGLL), State Governments and other stakeholders. The system, called the Coastal Surveillance Network (CSN), consists of 46 static radars along India's coastline. Thirty-six radars were installed on the mainland, 6 in Lakshadweep, and 4 in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Phase I of the system was completed with the commissioning of a static sensor site on Sagar Island, south of Kolkata, West Bengal in December 2016. Phase I was estimated to cost over inr 6000000000 following delays.

The Defence Acquisition Council, chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, approved inr 8000000000 to construct an additional 38 radar stations and 4 mobile surveillance stations under Phase II of the project in July 2018. The mobile surveillance stations will be integrated with the two vessel traffic management systems (VTMS) in Kutch and Khambat in Gujarat. A further 5 command and control centres will also be built under Phase II. The establishment of a radar station on Car Nicobar at a cost of inr 90000000 was approved in August 2019.

BEL signed a technology transfer agreement with Danish company Terma A/S to manufacture their SCANTER 2001 radars in India in November 2020. The company issued a statement, "Terma understands India’s call for self-reliance and its move towards Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat [self-reliant India] and thereby extends its support by adapting to the country’s demand and offering Transfer of Technology (ToT)."

System components
Stations are with fitted coastal surveillance radars, frequency diversity radars, meteorological systems, optical sensors, electro-optical sensors, Charge Coupled Device (CCD) day cameras, Low Light TV (LLTV) night vision cameras, Long-Range thermal imagers, an Automatic Identification System (AIS), a distress alert transmission system (DATS), electronic warfare support measures, and very high frequency (VHF) radio communication system s. Many stations are installed on top of lighthouses.

Each radar station transmits data to one of 12 Remote Operating Stations through two dedicated Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited lines each. The 12 Remote Operating Stations feed information to the four Joint Operations Centres (JOC) at Mumbai, Kochi, Visakhapatnam and Port Blair, which in turn feed all information to the Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC) based in Gurgaon, Haryana which is the nodal agency for maritime data fusion. All communications occur in real-time. Operators can also manipulate sensors and cameras at stations remotely. Cameras at the stations are capable of zooming in on people standing on the deck of a ship within a 15 nautical-mile range.

The instruments and sensors located at each station vary by type and manufacturer due to technology upgrades, and as the Government of India seeks to produce more components indigenously as part of its Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat initiatives. All 46 stations built in Phase I included a 25 nautical-mile range Terma A/S Scanter 2100 HCP frequency diversity radar with a dual antenna, an Obzerv Technologies ARGC-2400 active range-gated electro-optic sensors with a range of up to 10 nautical-miles, and a marine small target tracker that can positively identify vessels carrying class "A" and "B" AIS transponders. The stations also have a Saab Transponder Tech R40 Base Station that is the key component of the physical Automatic Identification System (AIS) shore station. It enables the station to communicate with vessels that are equipped with a registered AIS transponder. Some sensors, cameras and radars in Phase I stations were also supplied by Israeli defence comapany Elta Systems. Several components in Phase I stations, including modules and spares, were also manufactured by Bharat Electronics and other Indian suppliers.

Coastal Surveillance Radar
The Coastal Surveillance Radar was developed by the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) in Bangalore, Karnataka, and is the primary sensor of the ICSS. The radars operate round the clock in all weather conditions and are capable of detecting smaller vessels such as trawlers, dinghies, dhows, fishing vessels and buoys. A single CSR has a maximum range of 50 km and can detect vessels with a radar cross-section of 1 square meters within a 20 km range. A single Coastal Surveillance Radar can spot a vessel even among a clutter of vessels in heavy traffic situations up to a total of 1,500 vessels. The radars typically operate in the X band but switch to the S band during bad weather. They can be operated both locally and remotely. Although radars were built primarily for coastal surveillance, they can also be used for vessel traffic management, harbor surveillance and navigation. Coastal Surveillance Radars were designed so that they can also be mounted on a ship and used as a floating sea surface target surveillance radar.

The first 3 Coastal Surveillance Radars were installed at Balasore, Odisha.

Indian AIS
The Indian Automatic Identification System (IAIS), or Indian AIS, is an indigenous automatic identification system (AIS) developed by the Defence Electronics Application Laboratory (DEAL) in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, and produced by Bharat Electronics at Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh. Development of the system began in the early 2010s and entered the final stages of pilot-testing in mid-2015. DEAL installed Indian AIS on board around 150 vessels, all weighing under 20 tonnes, operating near the coast of Kochi, Kerala as part of the pilot project. The lab also established radars at Aroor, Malippuram, and Fort Kochi. The Indian AIS is also integrated with the automatic identification system (AIS) mandated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The IMO only mandates AIS on vessels above 300 tonnes.

Following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the Directorate General of Shipping had mandated that all ships having a length of more than 20 meters must install an AIS. However, most fishing vessels did not comply as the cost was prohibitive. In 2017, the Home Ministry approved inr 3360000000 to fit sub-20 meter boats with IAIS transponders. The Indian Navy began installing IAIS transporters onboard sub-20 meter fishing boats and dhows, and by 2019, had equipped 500 boats with transponders in Gujarat, 500 in Tamil Nadu and 50 in Puducherry. The arrangement benefits Indian fisherman as weather and fish shoal data from the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INOCOIS), as well as distress alerts, can be relayed to the vessels through the IAIS. As of November 2020, 60% of (or about 150,000) small fishing boats in India do have AIS transponders.

Electro-optical sight
The electro-optical system in under development by the Instruments Research and Development Establishment (IRDE) in Dehradun. The Defence Acquisition Council approved inr 8000000000 to construct 38 additional radar stations and 4 mobile surveillance systems under Phase II of the project on 15 July 2018. It comprises thermal imagers and optical cameras with a range of around 25 kilometers. The electro-optical sensors are expected to be able to auto track a vessel as small as 5 meters in length.

Diver Detection Sonar
The Diver Detection Sonar is a network of underwater sensors developed by the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL) based in Kochi, Kerala.

Software
The software that powers the ICSS was developed by the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) in Bangalore, Karnataka. The software integrates the multiple inputs received by the system into a comprehensive view. Data fusion was a major design challenge that software designers had to resolve. For example, the software can recognize when two radars detect the same vessel and can combine those images to track the vessel. The software also enables Remote Operating Stations to operate coastal radars and manipulate cameras remotely. Remote Operating Stations can also designate an area as a "sensitive zone", causing the software's alarm system to trigger an alert when ever a vessel enters the zone.

American defence conglomerate Raytheon Technologies had reportedly provided customized software to Bharat Electronics to power Phase I stations. The company has since developed its own solution. The ICSS software had over 500,000 lines of code as of December 2016.

Satellite imagery
The Sindhu Netra (Hindi: "Eye of the Sea") micro-satellite was developed to monitor the activities of military and merchant navy ships in the Indian Ocean region, and is capable of automatically identifying warships and merchant ships. Hyderabad-based Research Centre Imarat, a division of the DRDO, awarded a inr 22000000 contract to faculty members and students at PES University, Bangalore to develop the satellite in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Sindhu Netra was successfully launched onboard PSLV-C51 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh on 28 February 2021.

Outside India
Kalam was appointed as the first director of the Integrated Test Range in 1982. He described the process of finding a suitable missile test location during an address to civil servants in 2012. Following the successful demonstration of the Prithvi missile, the Indian Army requested DRDO to conduct a confirmatory test on a land range to validate Circular Error Probability (CEP). The DRDO was unable to conduct the test at their desert range because of geo-political issues and concerns about range safety. The agency decided to seek an uninhabited island off India's east coast to resolve the issue. The Indian Navy supplied DRDO with a hydrographic map on which Kalam spotted three small islands off Dhamra's coast, which were marked on the map as Long Wheeler, Coconut Wheeler and Small Wheeler. Kalam sent scientists Dr V. K. Saraswat and Dr S.K. Salwan to locate the island in 1993. The team hired a boat from Dhamra for inr 250, and armed with a directional compass, set off to locate the islands. However, they became lost until they came across some fishing vessels. The fishermen stated that they had not heard of Wheeler Island but provided directions to a nearby island they referred to as Chandrachood, which they thought could be Wheeler Island. After Saraswat and Salwan reached Chandrachood island, they confirmed that it was the same as Small Wheeler island on the map, and that it had the appropriate dimensions to host a missile testing facility. The team had to remain overnight on the island surviving only on bananas. In Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power Within India (2002), Kalam wrote, "to their surprise they [Saraswat & Salwan] found a Bangladeshi flag flying atop a tree, as the island may have been frequented by fishermen from the neighbouring country. My friends quickly removed the flag".

The DRDO subsequently approached the Government of Odisha for permission to use the island. The agency had received indications that there were several reasons why the Odisha Chief Minister's office would not be willing to allocate the island. Kalam requested and received a meeting with then Chief Minister Biju Patnaik. According to Kalam, "When we reached his office, the file was in front of him. Chief Minister Biju Patnaik ji said, Kalam, I have decided to give all the five islands at no cost to you [DRDO], but I will sign the file of approval only when you give me a promise. Chief Minister held my hand and said, I have an invitation to visit China. I will visit only when you promise that you will make a missile that will reach China. I said, Chief Minister Sir, definitely, we will work for it. I immediately informed our Defence Minister. Chief Minister signed the file and I got the island, particularly the Small Wheeler island." Patnaik's request would be fulfilled nine years later when Agni-I was successfully test fired from Wheeler Island on 25 January 2002.

A granite memorial called 'Prithvi Point' which was the original impact point for that crucial 1993 test after which the Indian armed forces decided to induct the missile in their arsenal. All three service Chiefs witnessed the landmark test. Salwan recalls the entire Island was on fire after the strike, which had hit bullseye.

India has proposed to build 32 coastal surveillance radars in friendly Indian Ocean states. The coastal surveillance system is currently operational in Bangladesh (under construction), Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles and Sri Lanka. India has proposed setting up radars in Myanmar and Thailand.

The first coastal surveillance radars outside India were established in Mauritius and Sri Lanka. There are 8 operational coastal surveillance radars in Mauritius, and 6 in Sri Lanka.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the coastal surveillance system in Seychelles on 11 March 2015. Modi called the system "another symbol of our cooperation" and stated that it would "enable Seychelles to secure these beautiful islands and the vast expanse of waters around them. Seychelles will also continue to make an enormous contribution to the safety and security of the Indian Ocean Region." India set up 10 radar stations in the Maldives. The coastal surveillance system was jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in Malé on 8 June 2019. India and Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding to set up 20 coastal surveillance radars in Bangladesh on 5 October 2019.