TITLE:
A Heterogeneous Information Fusion Method for Maritime Radar and AIS Based on D-S Evidence Theory
AUTHORS:
Chao Wu, Qing Wu, Feng Ma, Shuwu Wang
KEYWORDS:
D-S Evidence Theory, Heterogeneous Information Fusion, Radar Image, AIS Message
JOURNAL NAME:
Engineering,
Vol.15 No.12,
December
22,
2023
ABSTRACT: Maritime radar and automatic identification systems (AIS), which are
essential auxiliary equipment for navigation safety in the shipping industry,
have played significant roles in maritime safety supervision. However, in
practical applications, the information obtained by a single device is limited,
and it is necessary to integrate the information of maritime radar and AIS
messages to achieve better recognition effects. In this study, the D-S evidence
theory is used to fusion the two kinds of heterogeneous information: maritime
radar images and AIS messages. Firstly, the radar image and AIS message are processed to get the targets
of interest in the same coordinate system. Then, the coordinate position and
heading of targets are chosen as the indicators for judging target similarity.
Finally, a piece of D-S evidence theory based on the information fusion method
is proposed to match the radar target and the AIS target of the same ship.
Particularly, the effectiveness of the proposed method has been validated and
evaluated through several experiments, which proves that such a method is
practical in maritime safety supervision.