Vision-based navigation of an unmanned surface vehicle with object detection and tracking abilities

Abstract

The paper discusses autocalibration, object detection, and object tracking for unmanned surface vehicles. Input data are recorded with a wide-baseline stereo vision system providing accuracy for distance estimations. The paper reports about followed ways and novel contributions for ensuring a working system solution. Automatic self-calibration is used for the wide-baseline stereo vision system. Robust sea surface estimation and the detection of the horizon support the understanding of the given scene environment. Long-range (i.e. up to 500 m) object detection and tracking are supported by the used wide-baseline stereo system. The paper informs about the complete system design, informs about applied or designed methods, and also about experiments which verify that the system achieved an operational state.