Providing a composite image of an environment surrounding a vessel by: creating an image data set comprising images received from cameras located on the vessel and cameras located off the vessel; transforming the viewpoint of some of the images to create a set of images having a common viewpoint; stitching the transformed images to provide a composite image. Transformation may employ a rotation matrix. The common viewpoint may be an aerial or plan view. Image stitching may use overlapping image portions, common features or image corners; a ray vector may be calculated for each camera pixel and propagated to the composite image surface; reprojected pixel size and shape on the surface may be calculated; a quality metric may be determined based on pixel density, pixel distortion and reprojection errors; overlapping pixels may be blended or the pixel with the highest quality metric may be selected for inclusion in the composite image. Position and attitude of the boat at a specific time may be tracked using satellite navigation systems. Images may be transmitted with metadata identifying camera location, coordinates and orientation. Off-ship images may be selected based on the camera’s height above sea level. May assist navigating and manoeuvring ships.
Vessel situational awareness
2024-08-28
Patent
Electronic Resource
English
TIBKAT | 2011
|SLUB | 2011
|Maritime situational awareness
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2008
|Motion Control of an Autonomous Surface Vessel for Enhanced Situational Awareness
BASE | 2013
|