Radar Target Tracking Coordinated Control with PTZ Cameras for Monitoring Nearshore Buoys

To address the difficulty of collision monitoring and evidence collection for nearshore buoys, a monitoring system integrating radar and PTZ camera is constructed. A method is developed to guide the PTZ camera to align with waterborne vessel targets through radar target tracking. Considering the characteristics of complex backgrounds and high noise in nearshore radar images, the threshold method is employed to determine whether the radar background image is updated. Through consecutive frame differencing, it is determined whether there is a voyaging vessel. Subsequently, morphological operations, filtering operations, and testing image connectivity are employed to accomplish vessel noise removal, target boundary smoothing, and calculation of connected region areas, and consequently completing vessel tracking and positioning. Field deployment tests indicate that a stable tracking state can be achieved by continuously acquiring 10 frames of radar images. This capability can provide parameters for coordinated control with the PTZ camera.