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Sub-THz Radar sensing of the Environment for future Autonomous Marine platforms - STREAM

未来自主海洋平台的亚太赫兹环境雷达传感 - STREAM

基本信息

批准号：
EP/S033238/1
负责人：
Marina Gashinova
金额：
$ 108.84万
依托单位：
University of Birmingham
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2020
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2020 至无数据
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FS033238%2F1
关键词：
Sub THz Radar sensing Environment

项目摘要

The impending era of autonomous shipping will create a revolution in maritime navigation and mission planning which has many parallels with the revolution which is already underway in the automotive world and will impact all aspects of vessel design, manufacture and operation, reducing costs and environmental impacts. The key enabler will be the role of advanced electronics to provide the platform with full intelligence to facilitate autonomous operation with sensing and processing capabilities superior to those of a human. Merchant shipping companies announced autonomous vessels in 2018 [http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/marine/forget-autonomous-cars-autonomous-ships-are-almost-here]. However, in addition to large autonomous ships, there is a growing, potentially huge, market for small/medium agile vessels, demanding new sensing capabilities to provide situational awareness of the proximate environment. Their requirements differ significantly from those of large ships: (i) for the safety of the boat, humans or sea animals in/on the water, robust all-weather day/night detection and classification of small objects is required at ranges of up to ~300 m - too close for large ships to manoeuvre, (ii) large waves are more hazardous for smaller boats so wave profiling is critical for adaptation to the dynamic environment and safe path planning. We assert that the key sensor modality to satisfy these requirements is novel sub-THz radar operating in the 140-340 GHz frequency spectrum. By its nature, radar is robust to the conditions that limit electro-optical (EO) sensors, but the proposed short wavelength and wide bandwidth can bring key capabilities unavailable in traditional marine radar: (i) imagery that is closer to familiar video, able to exploit the vast legacy of image processing algorithms; (ii) greatly improved cross-range resolution from a small sensor, leading to significant improvements in detection and classification of small objects and compatibility with small vessels; (iii) 3D imagery that can highlight objects; (iv) sensitivity to surface texture which will facilitate image segmentation and, ultimately, enable detection of anomalies within the mapped scene; (v) adaptability of the waveform for enhanced scene assessment in the spatio-temporal domain.This proposal falls under EPSRC's Sensors and Instrumentation theme, addressing the challenge of providing new and essential capabilities for situational awareness for small marine craft, ensuring safe and efficient operation in dynamic sea conditions. This will be achieved by creating a sub-THz intelligent radar, delivering superior imagery, precise measurements and cognitive scene assessment by adapting radar parameters and using novel data processing including: (i) two-stage data assessment to detect and classify objects as anomalies in the '5D descriptor space' of range, cross-range, elevation, Doppler and micro-Doppler and (ii) mapping the dynamic 3D sea surface in real time. This will enable reliable detection of hazards including small surface or semi-submerged objects, hazardous seas at ranges up to ~300 m with high spatial and temporal fidelity.The proposal comprises a wide scope of essential research stages: phenomenological studies of sub-THz scattering and propagation above the sea surface, comprehensive analysis of radar signatures and imagery of marine objects and environment and development of cognitive sensing strategy and signal processing to provide situational awareness.

即将到来的自主航运时代将在海上导航和使命规划方面引发一场革命，这与汽车领域已经发生的革命有许多相似之处，并将影响船舶设计，制造和运营的各个方面，降低成本和环境影响。关键的推动者将是先进的电子设备的作用，为平台提供全面的智能，以促进自主操作，其传感和处理能力上级优于人类。商船公司在2018年宣布了自主船舶[http：//spectrum.ieee.org/transport/marine/forget-autonomous-cars-autonomous-ships-are-almost-here]。然而，除了大型自主船舶外，中小型敏捷船舶的市场也在不断增长，潜力巨大，需要新的传感能力来提供对附近环境的态势感知。它们的要求与大型船舶的要求有很大不同：（i）为了船只、水中/水面上的人类或海洋动物的安全，需要在高达~300 m的距离内对小型物体进行全天候、全天候、强有力的探测和分类-距离太近，大型船只无法操纵，（ii）大浪对较小船只的危险性较大，因此波浪剖面分析对适应动态环境和安全路径规划至关重要。我们断言，满足这些要求的关键传感器模态是在140-340 GHz频谱中工作的新型亚太赫兹雷达。就其性质而言，雷达对于限制电光（EO）传感器的条件是鲁棒的，但是所提出的短波长和宽带宽可以带来传统海洋雷达中无法获得的关键能力：（i）图像更接近于熟悉的视频，能够利用图像处理算法的大量遗产; ㈡大大提高小型传感器的横向分辨率，从而大大改进小型物体的探测和分类以及与小型船只的兼容性;（四）对表面纹理的敏感性，这将有助于图像分割，并最终能够检测映射场景中的异常情况;（v）波形的适应性，以加强时空域的现场评估。这项建议福尔斯EPSRC的传感器和仪器主题，应对挑战，为小型船舶提供新的和必要的态势感知能力，确保在动态海况下安全有效地作业。这将通过创建亚太赫兹智能雷达来实现，通过调整雷达参数和使用新的数据处理来提供上级图像，精确测量和认知场景评估，包括：（i）两阶段数据评估，在距离、横向距离、高度的“5D描述符空间”中探测物体并将其分类为异常，多普勒和微多普勒和（ii）映射的动态三维海面在真实的时间。这将能够可靠地探测危险，包括小的表面或半淹没物体，危险的海洋，范围高达300米，具有高度的空间和时间保真度。海面上亚太赫兹散射和传播的现象学研究，综合分析海洋物体和环境的雷达特征和图像，并制定认知感知战略和信号处理，以提供态势感知。