MSc thesis project proposal

[2020-21 with DAMEN] Radar sensors for autodocking

Damen Shipyards is one of the leading Dutch shipyards. The entire Damen group consists of more than 30 subsidiary companies both in the Netherlands and abroad, employing 12000 people worldwide. The central research department of Damen, located at Gorinchem, is actively investigating automation technologies that improve the ship’s controllability at first, but can eventually lead to fully self-sailing ships.
An example of an interesting automation technology is a support system for docking. This can be in a simple form, providing accurate information of the surrounding on a support display, or in a more advanced form, autodocking, where automatic controllers move the ship to the required birthing location. Such systems can greatly improve safety onboard vessels, and increase the speed and efficiency for docking.
Damen recently finished a project to specify requirements for distance sensors. Radar, camera, and laser were all indicated to be promising alternatives as distance sensors for short range, as in docking applications.
Initial tests have been performed to quantify laser sensor performance, but not yet with radar. Although X-band and S-band radar are already standard on ships, mm-wave radars have hardly been explored in practice. Mm-wave radars have very promising characteristics from both technical and economical perspectives, especially for nearby object detection.

Assignment

The overall objective of the proposed project is to identify the feasibility of radar for distance sensing at short range, for applications such as docking support/automation on ships. Specific tasks part of the project assignment may include:
-Understanding and defining the relevant requirements for autonomous operations of vessels, and their translation into radar requirements in terms of their number, location, RF characteristics. In this regard, the large body of literature already available for autonomous cars can constitute a starting point for the investigation.
-Modelling the mm-wave radar signatures of targets of interest in the maritime scenarios (e.g. different types of vessels in different geometries, typical infrastructure on the shoreline); this can also include an aspect of EM propagation modelling accounting for the effects induced by water spray and droplets.
-Formulating algorithms for situational awareness that rely on radar data to image the scenes of interest around the ego-vessel. Challenging elements of innovation in this regard can include the usage of information from multiple radars (e.g. assuming two radar systems located along the side of the vessel), and an element of adaptive signal processing (e.g. the algorithms that generate and/or classify the radar images change over time to match what the vessels are doing).

Interested candidates are encouraged to get in touch with the contact points at Damen & TU Delft.
At DAMEN Kasper van der El, Kasper.van.der.el@damen.com
At TU Delft A.Yarovoy@tudelft.nl; F.Fioranelli@tudelft.nl

Contact

dr. Francesco Fioranelli

Microwave Sensing, Signals and Systems Group

Department of Microelectronics

Last modified: 2021-01-19