Wide-area ship target recognition method based on motion and appearance features

Abstract

Objective This paper proposes methods for better recognizing and positioning ships sailing in critical and wide-area waterways during monitoring operation. Methods Based on video surveillance technology, the joint use of the motion and appearance features of a ship target is carried out to realize a wide-area multi-dimensional recognition function via the combination of a background subtraction-based moving object detection algorithm and deep learning-based target recognition algorithm. In addition, the improved approaches including water ripple noise reduction, hierarchical moving object detection and window segmentation of channel monitoring image are put forward to further improve ship recognition accuracy. Results The fieldde monstration results show that the improved methods proposed in this paper allow the accurate recognition of a ship of any type or size on the monitoring screen, and the use of conventional cameras can also achieve the recognition and position of a ship navigating a water area within a radius of 3 km. Conclusions The improved methods proposed in this study have a range of advantages including wide-area monitoring, complete coverage of ship types and sizes, automatic target recognition and robust anti-interference ability.