CPAS — Common Position Awareness System
CPAS is VIDEAR's flagship application of the platform - a complete common visibility solution designed for the RNLI, MCA, and UK coastal communities.
It addresses the single most dangerous gap in UK maritime safety: the 80% of coastal activity that is entirely invisible to the systems designed to protect it. By deploying Soft ADS-B across the recreational and small commercial fleet, CPAS creates the Common Operating Picture that RNLI crews, coastguard operators, port controllers, and drone teams all need - and that currently does not exist anywhere in the UK.
The pilot deployment runs across the Newhaven-to-Shoreham corridor: 14 kilometres of coastline that encompasses commercial port traffic, cliff-edge paramotor activity, high-density beach users, offshore wind farm logistics, and three active RNLI stations. If it works here, it works everywhere.
For RNLI and SAR Operations
CPAS transforms search and rescue from a wide-area visual hunt into a precision recovery mission.
When a kayaker is reported overdue, the system replays their last known trajectory, establishes their Last Known Position to within metres, and generates a predictive drift model fused with live tidal and wind data. The lifeboat helm sees an AR vector arrow pointing directly to the predicted location of the casualty - even when that casualty is physically hidden below wave height. Search times fall from three to four hours to eighteen to twenty-five minutes. Crew exposure drops. Survival probability rises.
CPAS also provides the UTM visibility layer that the RNLI's Lockheed Martin drone programme has needed to achieve routine BVLOS operations. By making paramotor pilots and other aerial dark targets electronically visible, CPAS gives the CAA the airspace deconfliction data it requires to authorise drone deployment. A decade of investment in RNLI drone capability - currently grounded by the absence of this one piece of infrastructure - becomes operational.
For Port Authorities
Port controllers at Newhaven, Shoreham, and facilities across the UK face real liability when dark targets drift into commercial shipping approaches. A recreational kayaker invisible to radar. A paddleboarder crossing a ferry lane. A small fishing vessel with no AIS signal.
CPAS provides a VTS Blind-Spot Feed: a real-time overlay of all registered coastal users in the port approaches, delivered via API directly into existing Vessel Traffic Service displays. Port controllers see the complete picture - commercial and recreational, AIS and Soft ADS-B - in one integrated view. Available on a monthly subscription basis, with no hardware installation required.
For Insurers and the Actuarial Market
170,000 dark coastal vessels represent entirely unquantifiable risk in the current maritime insurance market. There is no historical trajectory data. No incident correlation. No verified identity attached to each risk. Premiums for small-vessel cover are estimated rather than calculated.
CPAS changes this. Level 3 verified users - with registered hull IDs, vessel photographs, and club vouchers - provide Lloyd's Register and P&I Clubs with the actuarial data needed to price small-vessel risk with genuine precision. VIDEAR's risk reduction fee model allows insurers to offer premium discounts to verified users while improving their own loss ratios. For a typical boat insurance policy of £200, a 10% discount makes the VIDEAR subscription effectively free for the user - and creates a self-sustaining acquisition engine at no marketing cost.
For Defence and Security (DASA)
The same visibility infrastructure that makes coastal safety operations work is a force multiplier for UK littoral security.
By establishing a verified baseline of Known Good Actors through the CPAS trust ladder, security assets can redirect their full attention to contacts that carry no VIDEAR registration signature. Any radar or optical contact without a corresponding Soft ADS-B handshake becomes an immediate anomaly flag. The Innocent Dark - 98% of recreational users - become transparent. The Intentional Dark - the less than 2% of contacts that represent genuine security risk - become immediately and unambiguously identifiable.
VIDEAR aligns directly with DASA's Look Out! Maritime Early Warning Innovations competition and the Rapid Impact funding programme, providing a dual-use capability across SAR and littoral force protection that scales from the Newhaven-Shoreham sandbox to the full UK South Coast.