Detection of land in marine images

Abstract

In order to navigate safely at sea, contemporary marine vehicles, both surface and underwater, are equipped with a variety of different sensors. One of these sensors is typically a video camera, a device that is becoming increasingly popular on the decks of both ships and smaller marine vehicles. A compact size and low cost make it an appealing sensor particularly for small and medium size autonomous vehicles which utilize the camera mainly for obstacle detection and collision avoidance. However, the visual information provided by the camera can also be combined with information acquired from the navigational map, for estimating the position of the vehicle in the environment. In this paper, an the coast can be estimated and then utilized to calculate vehicle position. The paper formulates the algorithm and reports verification experiments on real images of the Gdynia harbor and its neighborhood.