Integrated computer vision for autonomous marine operations

In this graduation thesis the feasibility of a camera as sensor for nautical operations is investigated. In aerospace and automotive industries autonomous vehicles are already widely tested and used. However the marine industry has fallen behind in this development. Therefore this research is focussing on automation in the maritime sector. First a system was developed which measures distance and heading from a video feed. Thereafter simulink models were made to develop a system that autonomously can perform nautical operations. For this research multiple operations have been modeled. First of all the platform approach and the replenishment approach. In these operations the system should be able to approach a stationary or moving target. Also station keeping after the approach is required. The complexity of the operations was increased with the choice for follow the leader from the maneuvering operations. Finally the avoidance of upcoming collisions was modeled. The models for all of these operations were rst developed and tested with an oine model. This enabled a quick and accurate controller tuning. The rst real test for these models was done in a ship handling simulator. Here the models were tested and the in uence of environmental conditions was measured. In the simulator all models performed quite well. However the performance is largely limited by the choice for the camera and environmental conditions. The most interfering conditions are lateral incoming waves, fog and light. Models for small scale testing were developed, but the communication between dierent components and the control system proved to be a large issue. Therefore these models could not be tested. All in all this research shows that after improving system component, a camera system can very well be used as a sensor for autonomous operations at sea.