Water-Nonwater Segmentation for Unified Marine Range Charts
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing navigation systems for watercraft and other mobile structures lack the ability to effectively combine data from disparate sensors, resulting in a fragmented and unintuitive representation of the environment, which can hinder safe and efficient navigation.
Innovation Solution
A sensor fusion navigation system that integrates data from various sensors such as sonar, radar, GNSS, and video/imagery-based systems, using a logic device to generate a navigational database by combining navigational data based on orientation and position data, and producing water/non-water segmented images to create a range chart of the environment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If separate navigation subsystems (radar, sonar, video) are used independently with separate displays, then each subsystem can perform its specialized function, but the overall navigation system provides a fragmented and unintuitive representation of the environment
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges data from multiple separate navigation subsystems (radar, sonar, video/imagery) into a single integrated display. The logic device combines navigational data from these disparate sensors and presents them together in one unified view, eliminating the need for multiple separate displays and providing a comprehensive environmental representation.
Solution Approach 2:
The integrated display system performs multiple functions simultaneously: it displays radar data for terrain geometry, sonar data for underwater hazards, and video data for surface monitoring, all within a single navigation interface. This multi-functional approach replaces multiple specialized displays with one universal navigation display.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple separate navigation subsystems are implemented, then comprehensive sensor coverage is achieved, but the system lacks the ability to intercommunicate and integrate data
Solution Approach 1:
The logic device serves as an intermediary that receives data from multiple independent navigation subsystems, processes and combines this data, and outputs integrated navigational information. This intermediary component enables intercommunication between previously isolated subsystems without requiring complex direct connections between each sensor pair.
3Ease of operation
If conventional separate subsystems are used, then individual sensor functions are preserved, but intuitive navigation assistance is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
By combining data from radar, sonar, and video sensors into a single integrated display, the system provides navigators with a unified view of the environment that includes both surface and underwater features, as well as terrain geometry and hazards. This merged presentation is more intuitive than separate displays because it shows all relevant environmental information in one context.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are disclosed for systems and methods for water non-water segmentation of navigational imagery to assist in the autonomous navigation of mobile structures. An imagery based navigation system includes a logic device configured to communicate with an imaging module coupled to a mobile structure and/or configured to capture images of an environment about the mobile structure. The logic device may be configured to receive at least one image from the imaging module; determine a water/non-water segmented image based, at least in part, on the received at least one image, and generate a range chart corresponding to the environment about the mobile structure based, at least in part, on the determined water/non-water segmented image and/or the received at least one image.