%0 Journal Article
%@ 0029-8018
%A Xie, Yongchang
%A Nanlal, Cassandra
%A Liu, Yuanchang
%D 2024
%F discovery:10197444
%I Elsevier
%J Ocean Engineering
%K LiDAR-based perception; Ship detection;   Deep learning;   Object tracking;   Autonomous Surface Vehicle
%N Part-3
%T Reliable LiDAR-based ship detection and tracking for Autonomous Surface Vehicles in busy maritime environments
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10197444/
%V 312
%X Environmental perception is a crucial requirement of Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) if required to perform tasks safely in a dynamically complex operational environment. Most existing methods for ship detection rely on camera-based methods, which are sensitive to environmental conditions and cannot directly provide spatial location information related to detected targets. To overcome this limitation, we propose a LiDAR-based ship detection and tracking framework that can be applied to busy maritime environments. The proposed framework consists of two functional modules: a ship detection and multi-object tracking. For ship detection, a modularised network structure was adapted, allowing for ease of switching between different types of detection network to prioritise either detection accuracy, detection speed or a compromise of both, depending on the task requirements. A Kalman Filter-based multi-object tracking method is also implemented to compensate for any detections that may have been missed as a result of ship motions or occlusions, relying solely on the detection results. We also collected the first-ever real-world LiDAR dataset for maritime applications across the River Thames and marinas, including a range of ship types, with lengths ranging from 5 m up to 40 m, and different hull types. The datasets are organised in a similar manner to the KITTI datasets, which can be easily applied to the well-developed point cloud detection networks. Remarkably, our methods achieve an overall detection accuracy of 74.1% in the collected datasets. The proposed framework and dataset make LiDAR-based environmental perception feasible for implementation in ASVs and support development in the autonomous maritime navigation field.
%Z Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).