On-Board Ship Detection for Medium Resolution Optical Sensors

In recent years there has been an increased interest in ocean surveillance. The activity includes control and monitoring of illegal fisheries, manmade ocean pollution and illegal sea traffic surveillance, etc. The key problem is how to identify ships and ship-like objects accurately and in a timely...

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Main Authors: Somnath Ghosh, Pramod Kumar Konugurthi, Gowri Shankar Rao Singupurapu, Shivi Patel, Tirupathi Tammanagari, Mallikarjuna Rao Desu, Lalit Krushna Thakar, Ishika Ghara
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-04-01
Series:Sensors
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/9/3062
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author Somnath Ghosh
Pramod Kumar Konugurthi
Gowri Shankar Rao Singupurapu
Shivi Patel
Tirupathi Tammanagari
Mallikarjuna Rao Desu
Lalit Krushna Thakar
Ishika Ghara
author_facet Somnath Ghosh
Pramod Kumar Konugurthi
Gowri Shankar Rao Singupurapu
Shivi Patel
Tirupathi Tammanagari
Mallikarjuna Rao Desu
Lalit Krushna Thakar
Ishika Ghara
author_sort Somnath Ghosh
collection DOAJ
description In recent years there has been an increased interest in ocean surveillance. The activity includes control and monitoring of illegal fisheries, manmade ocean pollution and illegal sea traffic surveillance, etc. The key problem is how to identify ships and ship-like objects accurately and in a timely manner. In this context, currently, many solutions have been proposed based on high resolution optical and radar remote sensing systems. Most often, these systems suffer from two major limitations viz., limited swath, thereby requiring multiple satellites to cover the region of interest and huge volumes of data being transmitted to ground, even though effective per-pixel information content is minimal. Another limitation is that the existing systems are either simulated on ground or built using the non-space qualified/Commercial Of-The-Shelf (COTS) components. This paper proposes an efficient on-board ship detection system/package connected with medium resolution wide swath optical camera. The methodology adopted has three major components, viz., onboard data processing for improving the radiometric fidelity, followed by a ship detection using modified Constant False Alarm Rate algorithm (CFAR) and a false alarm suppression module to mask false identifications. Finally, the package outputs only the locations of the ships, which is transmitted to the ground. The proposed system reduces the effective volume of data to be transmitted and processed on ground and also significantly cuts down the turnaround time for achieving the end objective. The system is built on radiation hardened Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices to meet the various engineering constraints such as real-time performance, limited onboard power, radiation hardness, handling of multiple custom interfaces etc. The system is tested with one of the medium resolution Multispectral Visual and Near Infra-Red (MX-VNIR) sensor having a spatial resolution of around 50 m and swath of around 500 Kms, which would be flown with one of the upcoming satellites. The systems performance is also verified on ground with Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) Satellite’s Resourcesat’s Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) data and the results are found to be quite encouraging as well as meeting the mission objectives.
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spelling doaj.art-be0b410f65dd40db95a640574a4ebd552023-11-21T17:29:49ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202021-04-01219306210.3390/s21093062On-Board Ship Detection for Medium Resolution Optical SensorsSomnath Ghosh0Pramod Kumar Konugurthi1Gowri Shankar Rao Singupurapu2Shivi Patel3Tirupathi Tammanagari4Mallikarjuna Rao Desu5Lalit Krushna Thakar6Ishika Ghara7Advanced Data Processing and Research Institute, Secunderabad 500009, IndiaAdvanced Data Processing and Research Institute, Secunderabad 500009, IndiaAdvanced Data Processing and Research Institute, Secunderabad 500009, IndiaAdvanced Data Processing and Research Institute, Secunderabad 500009, IndiaAdvanced Data Processing and Research Institute, Secunderabad 500009, IndiaAdvanced Data Processing and Research Institute, Secunderabad 500009, IndiaU.R. Rao Satellite Centre, Bengaluru 560017, IndiaU.R. Rao Satellite Centre, Bengaluru 560017, IndiaIn recent years there has been an increased interest in ocean surveillance. The activity includes control and monitoring of illegal fisheries, manmade ocean pollution and illegal sea traffic surveillance, etc. The key problem is how to identify ships and ship-like objects accurately and in a timely manner. In this context, currently, many solutions have been proposed based on high resolution optical and radar remote sensing systems. Most often, these systems suffer from two major limitations viz., limited swath, thereby requiring multiple satellites to cover the region of interest and huge volumes of data being transmitted to ground, even though effective per-pixel information content is minimal. Another limitation is that the existing systems are either simulated on ground or built using the non-space qualified/Commercial Of-The-Shelf (COTS) components. This paper proposes an efficient on-board ship detection system/package connected with medium resolution wide swath optical camera. The methodology adopted has three major components, viz., onboard data processing for improving the radiometric fidelity, followed by a ship detection using modified Constant False Alarm Rate algorithm (CFAR) and a false alarm suppression module to mask false identifications. Finally, the package outputs only the locations of the ships, which is transmitted to the ground. The proposed system reduces the effective volume of data to be transmitted and processed on ground and also significantly cuts down the turnaround time for achieving the end objective. The system is built on radiation hardened Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices to meet the various engineering constraints such as real-time performance, limited onboard power, radiation hardness, handling of multiple custom interfaces etc. The system is tested with one of the medium resolution Multispectral Visual and Near Infra-Red (MX-VNIR) sensor having a spatial resolution of around 50 m and swath of around 500 Kms, which would be flown with one of the upcoming satellites. The systems performance is also verified on ground with Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) Satellite’s Resourcesat’s Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) data and the results are found to be quite encouraging as well as meeting the mission objectives.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/9/3062remote sensingship detectionon-board processingCFARsatellite data processingreal-time processing
spellingShingle Somnath Ghosh
Pramod Kumar Konugurthi
Gowri Shankar Rao Singupurapu
Shivi Patel
Tirupathi Tammanagari
Mallikarjuna Rao Desu
Lalit Krushna Thakar
Ishika Ghara
On-Board Ship Detection for Medium Resolution Optical Sensors
Sensors
remote sensing
ship detection
on-board processing
CFAR
satellite data processing
real-time processing
title On-Board Ship Detection for Medium Resolution Optical Sensors
title_full On-Board Ship Detection for Medium Resolution Optical Sensors
title_fullStr On-Board Ship Detection for Medium Resolution Optical Sensors
title_full_unstemmed On-Board Ship Detection for Medium Resolution Optical Sensors
title_short On-Board Ship Detection for Medium Resolution Optical Sensors
title_sort on board ship detection for medium resolution optical sensors
topic remote sensing
ship detection
on-board processing
CFAR
satellite data processing
real-time processing
url https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/9/3062
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AT tirupathitammanagari onboardshipdetectionformediumresolutionopticalsensors
AT mallikarjunaraodesu onboardshipdetectionformediumresolutionopticalsensors
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