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Predictive Modelling of Maritime Radar Data Using Transformer Architecture

delete2026-08-12
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OA
AI
B
Bjorna Qesaraku
J
Jan Steckel *
DOI:10.3390/jmse14161482delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Predicting vessel motion and environmental dynamics is essential for safe operation of autonomous maritime navigation systems. Transformer-based models have achieved strong results in AIS-trajectory forecasting and in anticipating future sonar observations, however, their use in maritime radar frame prediction has received little attention, despite radar being a key sensing modality in challenging weather and visibility conditions. In an effort to address this gap, this paper introduces a transformer architecture for predicting future maritime radar frames from sequences of past X-band observations and vessel ego-motion derived from GNSS, adapting the EchoPT paradigm originally developed for simulated in-air sonar imagery to the real-world MOANA dataset. We detail the model architecture and evaluate its prediction performance under both single-frame and autoregressive settings on held-out test data, and benchmark the model against persistence and rigid geometric warp references. A complementary failure mode analysis links the observed prediction errors to specific architectural and dataset choices, providing concrete directions for further research.
Keywords:
maritime radar
radar frame prediction
transformer
X-band radar
ego-motion conditioning
autoregressive prediction
deep learning
autonomous vessels

Journal

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering cover
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
IF:
2.8
Papers:
4.2K
Citations:
2.3W

Organization

U
university of antwerp
Scholars:
2.2K
Papers: 940
Citations: 0
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