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GUIDING SHIPS ON WATERWAYS 
M. Sandler, U. Kabatek, R. Neul, E. D. Gilles 
Institut für Systemdynamik und Regelungstechnik, Universitát Stuttgart 
Commission ll, Working Group 1 
KEY WORDS: ship guidance, radar image processing, sensor integration 
ABSTRACT 
A self-contained, integrated navigation system for the automatic guidance of ships on waterways is described. 
Besides the usual navigation sensors, imaging sensors like a radar or a laser scanner are used. The sensor 
information is combined with a-priori knowledge in the form of an electronic chart of the waterway and a dynamic 
ship model, in orderto determine the position and heading of the navigating ship in global coordinates. Matching 
of image data and electronic chart is performed by a least-squares matching technique that is applied similarly to 
measurements from the different imaging sensors. The results of the matching processes and measurements 
from other sensors are integrated by a Kalman filter. A multiple-target tracking method is implemented for 
the determination of the trajectories of other vessels and thus for the evaluation of the actual traffic situation. 
Additional processing steps of the integrated navigation system are the planning of a trajectory and the 
guidance of the ship along this trajectory. The methods were successfully tested in practice. The structure of 
this integrated navigation system, developed for the case of inland shipping, may be transferred to other traffic 
systems. 
1 INTRODUCTION 
At the "Institute for System Dynamics and Control", 
University of Stuttgart, an integrated navigation sys- 
tem for inland and costal waterways is being devel- 
oped. The goal of the project is a system capable 
of automatically guiding a ship on a waterway in nor- 
mal traffic situations. Such a system will relieve the 
navigator from tiring routine work and support him 
in complex situations, particularly at night or in foggy 
weather. The heavy traffic on e. g. the river Rhine with 
shipment of dangerous goods such as chemicals and 
refinery products implies many risks for the environ- 
ment. The system helps to protect the environment 
by increasing the level of safety on the waterway. It 
is not targeted as a replacement for the navigator. 
This project is funded by the "Deutsche Forsch- 
ungsgemeinschaft" within the SFB 228 'High preci- 
sion navigation'. It is also promoted by the german 
ministry for traffic. 
Within this paper we will focus on the real-time pro- 
cessing of the measurements of the different sensors, 
especially the processing of the image data. Image 
data are generated by a radar and by a laser scan- 
ner both sensing the surroundings of the ship. 1n 
section 2 the configuration and components of the 
navigation system will be explained first. The elec- 
tronic chart is an important component in the image 
processing algorithms. Her structure and implemen- 
tation is discussed in section 3. The image data are 
used to determine the position and heading of the own 
vessel in global coordinates by matching the images 
to the electronic chart of the waterway. The match- 
ing algorithms are discussed within section 4. As 
explained in section 5 the image data are also used 
to determine the actual traffic situation. Based on the 
matching results and measurements of other sensors 
available to the system an integrated estimate of the 
ship's state is computed by a Kalman filter described 
in section 6. In section 7 the generalized structure 
of the navigation system is deduced. Finally section 
8 gives a brief outlook on the trajectory planning and 
control algorithms implemented within the navigation 
system. 
2 COMPONENTS AND TASKS OF THE 
INTEGRATED NAVIGATION SYSTEM 
The configuration of the integrated navigation sys- 
tem is shown schematically in figure 1. Onthe left side 
the sensors of the system are represented. Imaging 
and non-imaging sensors can be distinguished. The 
radar yields a map-like representation of the local en- 
vironment. Itis part ofthe standard equipment of most 
commercial inland and coastal ships. A new radar im- 
age is obtained about every 2.3 seconds and trans- 
ferred into the ship-borne computer. Processing of 
the radar image is very computationally intensive and 
has to be accomplished in real-time. Therefore, all 
algorithms for this task have to be designed for max- 
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