Real-World Marine Radar Datasets for Evaluating Target Tracking Methods

As autonomous navigation is being implemented in several areas including the maritime domain, the need for robust tracking is becoming more important for traffic situation awareness, assessment and monitoring. We present an online repository comprising three designated marine radar datasets from real-world measurement campaigns to be employed for target detection and tracking research purposes. The datasets have their respective reference positions on the basis of the Automatic Identification System (AIS). Together with the methods used for target detection and clustering, a novel baseline algorithm for an extended centroid-based multiple target tracking is introduced and explained. We compare the performance of our algorithm to its standard version on the datasets using the AIS references. The results obtained and some initial dataset specific analysis are presented. The datasets, under the German Aerospace Centre (DLR)'s terms and agreements, can be procured from the company website's URL provided in the article.

Automated summary

As autonomous navigation is increasingly utilized, the study emphasizes the importance of robust tracking in maritime traffic. Three marine radar datasets are provided for target detection and tracking research, along with a novel algorithm for multiple target tracking based on centroid. Performance comparison with a standard version and dataset-specific analysis are presented. The datasets are available under DLR's terms and agreements.