Tracking of ARPA Radar Signals Based on UK–PDAF and Fusion with AIS Data

Abstract

To maintain the existing systems of ships and introduce autonomous operation technology, it is necessary to improve situational awareness through the sensor fusion of the automatic identification system (AIS) and automatic radar plotting aid (ARPA), which are installed sensors. This study proposes an algorithm for determining whether AIS and ARPA signals are sent to the same ship in real time. To minimize the number of errors caused by the time series and abnormal phenomena of heterogeneous signals, a tracking method based on the combination of the unscented Kalman filter and probabilistic data association filter is performed on ARPA radar signals, and a position prediction method is applied to AIS signals. Especially, the proposed algorithm determines whether the signal is for the same vessel by comparing motion-related components among data of heterogeneous signals to which the corresponding method is applied. Finally, a measurement test is conducted on a training ship. In this process, the proposed algorithm is validated using the AIS and ARPA signal data received by the voyage data recorder for the same ship. In addition, the proposed algorithm is verified by comparing the test results with those obtained from raw data. Therefore, it is recommended to use a sensor fusion algorithm that considers the characteristics of sensors to improve the situational awareness accuracy of existing ship systems.