A novel positioning approach for an intelligent vessel based on an improved simultaneous localization and mapping algorithm and marine radar

Abstract

This research proposes a simultaneous localization and mapping approach to obtain the positioning information of a vessel in accordance with sequential radar images. At the very beginning, the digital image preprocessing methods are used to obtain the static feature point in radar images. Subsequently, the trajectory of the vessel is calculated based on a simultaneous localization and mapping–based algorithm. Finally, the calculated vessel trajectory is compared with the actual trajectory to verify the validity of the proposed approach. With the help of this approach, marine radar is capable of providing temporal positioning information of the vessel from a plethora of blips captured in frame-by-frame radar images. The proposed approach is unique in that it used marine radar as the only sensor to obtain the positioning information of the vessel. Particularly, field testing has been conducted to validate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed approach.