Radar based Obstacle Detection System for Autonomous Unmanned Surface Vehicles

This paper proposes a dynamic obstacle detection system for USV based on marine radar and Electronic Navigational chart (ENC), the most common navigation sensors on ships. This system has the advantage of enabling simple obstacle recognition without the need to additionally mount expensive equipment. In this system, we generated two types of grid maps: one is plan position indicator (PPI) images from marine radar, the other is a hull information-based grid map extracted from ENC. By accumulating the two grid map images, obstacles that appear repeatedly are classified as fixed obstacles, and obstacles that move as the grid map is updated are classified as dynamic obstacles. The proposed obstacle detection system was installed in the Sea Sword USV developed by LIGNex1 and tested in a marine environment. The system proposed in the experiment recognized the small rubber boat as a dynamic obstacle and the surrounding environment as a static obstacle. Along with our proposed obstacle detection system, it is possible to recognize obstacles through ENC and radar, which are essential equipment for ships, without video equipment.