Seal Pipeline: Enhancing Dynamic Object Detection and Tracking for Autonomous Unmanned Surface Vehicles in Maritime Environments

This study addresses the dynamic object detection problem for Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) in marine environments, which is complicated by boat tilting and camera illumination sensitivity. A novel pipeline named “Seal” is proposed to enhance detection accuracy and reliability. The approach begins with an innovative preprocessing stage that integrates data from the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) with LiDAR sensors to correct tilt-induced distortions in LiDAR point cloud data and reduce ripple effects around objects. The adjusted data are grouped using clustering algorithms and bounding boxes for precise object localization. Additionally, a specialized Kalman filter tailored for maritime environments mitigates object discontinuities between successive frames and addresses data sparsity caused by boat tilting. The methodology was evaluated using the VRX simulator, with experiments conducted on the Volga River using real USVs. The preprocessing effectiveness was assessed using the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and tracking accuracy was evaluated through detection rate metrics. The results demonstrate a 25% to 30% improvement in detection accuracy and show that the pipeline can aid industry even with sparse object representation across different frames. This study highlights the potential of integrating sensor fusion with specialized tracking for accurate dynamic object detection in maritime settings, establishing a new benchmark for USV navigation systems’ accuracy and reliability.