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

即将到来的自主航运时代将在海上导航和任务规划方面掀起一场革命，这与汽车领域正在进行的革命有很多相似之处，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。关键的推动因素将是先进电子设备的作用，为平台提供完全智能，以促进自主操作，具有优于人类的传感和处理能力。商船公司在2018年宣布自主船舶[http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/marine/forget-autonomous-cars-autonomous-ships-are-almost-here]]。然而，除了大型自主船舶之外，中小型敏捷船舶也有一个不断增长的潜在巨大市场，需要新的传感能力来提供对邻近环境的态势感知。它们的要求与大型船舶的要求有很大的不同：(i)为了船、人或海洋动物在水中/水上的安全，需要在300米范围内对小型物体进行全天候、昼夜的检测和分类，因为距离太近，大型船只无法操纵；（ii）大浪对小型船只来说更危险，因此波浪剖面对适应动态环境和安全路径规划至关重要。我们认为满足这些要求的关键传感器模式是工作在140-340 GHz频段的新型亚太赫兹雷达。就其性质而言，雷达对限制光电（EO）传感器的条件具有鲁棒性，但拟议的短波长和宽带可以带来传统海洋雷达无法提供的关键功能：(1)图像更接近熟悉的视频，能够利用大量遗留的图像处理算法；（ii）大大提高了小型传感器的跨距离分辨率，从而大大提高了对小型物体的检测和分类以及与小型容器的兼容性；（iii）可以突出显示物体的3D图像；（iv）对表面纹理的敏感度，有助分割图像，并最终发现地图场景内的异常情况；(v)波形对增强场景评估的时空适应性。该提案属于EPSRC的传感器和仪器主题，旨在解决为小型船舶提供新的基本态势感知能力的挑战，确保在动态海况下安全高效地运行。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颖的数据处理，提供卓越的图像、精确的测量和认知场景评估，包括：(i)两阶段数据评估，以检测和分类物体为距离、交叉距离、高程、多普勒和微多普勒的“5D描述符空间”中的异常，以及（ii）实时绘制动态3D海面。这将能够可靠地探测危险，包括小型水面或半水下物体，距离约300米的危险海域，具有高空间和时间保真度。该提案包括范围广泛的基本研究阶段：海面上次太赫兹散射和传播的现象学研究，海洋物体和环境的雷达特征和图像的综合分析，以及提供态势感知的认知传感策略和信号处理的发展。

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.