Review of pose estimation within European ship-automation projects using GNSS-based navigation

Abstract

Accurate and reliable navigation systems are necessary to deploy autonomous shipping. For this purpose, georeferenced vehicle-pose information is often generated using sensor data fusion consisting of GNSS data, inertial measurement, and other applicable aiding sensors. This technical overview summarizes current European projects and international work in the field of GNSS-based maritime navigation and introduces and discusses the sensors and methods involved. The review focuses on approaches with proprioceptive sensor technology. Therefore, as a limitation, environment sensing algorithms (e. g., SLAM) are explicitly not included. It is concluded that highly accurate and reliable sensor fusion should include complementary and redundant onboard sensors, which are tightly coupled.