Methods and systems for detecting vessels

Abstract

A method of detecting vessels is described. A vessel is detected if a match exists between an object detection from each of two or more detectors 100, based on data obtained by the two or more detectors 100, which are selected from: an RF antenna 102; a light sensor 104; a radar detector 106; and an Automatic Identification System receiver 108. A method for detecting the presence of vessels at night is also described. The method comprises detecting a plurality of blobs within image data, applying an image mask to the image data to remove regions of the image data that are associated with having static objects and to retain the remaining portions of the image data, identifying one or more clusters of the detected plurality of blobs within the retained image data, and determining the presence of one or more vessels based on the one or more identified clusters.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.