River boundary detection and autonomous cruise for unmanned surface vehicles

Abstract The detection of river boundaries is a crucial branch of the intelligent perception of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), it can be used to determine the driving areas of USVs, and also to ensure driving safety by limiting the effective drivable areas of USVs in the river areas. Aiming to detect the boundaries of incompletely structured river channels, this study proposes a real‐time detection method for river boundaries based on a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensor. The point clouds that are disturbed by the water surface noise are filtered firstly, and then the spatial and geometric features are extracted separately from the point cloud detected above the water surface. To prevent the error detection and missing detection, the boundary point information is predicted and calibrated in real time by Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). A planning track generation algorithm for coastal autonomous cruise without relying on high‐precision maps, and a heading and distance adaptive control method by Proportional‐Integral‐Derivative (PID), and different driving line generation methods for driving along the narrow river and wide river are proposed respectively. The experimental data verification of river boundary detection shows that the algorithm is accurate, real‐time, and robust.