Wave height measurement scheme using wave detector based on convolutional neural network and PPM calculator with ocean wave images

The measurement of wave height is essential for weather analysis, safe navigation of ships, and ship design. This study proposes a low-cost and direct method for measuring wave height using ocean wave images. The proposed scheme comprises a Wave Detector based on Convolutional Neural Networks that takes two-dimensional ocean images as input, and a PPM Calculator that measures the size of an object in the image. The study explains the configuration and implementation of the Wave Detector and the basic principle and PPM surface generating method of the PPM Calculator, with support from ground experiments. The proposed scheme is validated using two types of wave height measurement sensors and three types of real ocean images for the Wave Detector, as well as two rounds of ground experiments for the PPM Calculator. The results show that the wave height values measured by the proposed scheme are highly consistent with the values from the measurement sensors.