A Method for Real-Time Vessel Speed Measurement Based on M-YOLOv11 and Visual Tracking

In the context of vessel monitoring, the accuracy of vessel speed measurements is contingent on the availability of AIS data. However, the absence, failure, or signal congestion of AIS devices may lead to delays and inaccuracies in the speed information. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a vessel speed detection method based on target detection and tracking to acquire vessel speed in real time. The proposed methodology involves the establishment of a mapping relationship between image coordinates and four real-world coordinates, ensuring precise conversion from pixel velocity to physical velocity. Subsequently, a frame difference method combined with a multi-frame averaging strategy calculates the vessel speed. Furthermore, an advanced M-YOLOv11 detection model is introduced to enhance the detection performance in different vessel shapes and complex environments, thus ensuring the accuracy of speed information is further improved. The experimental results demonstrate that M-YOLOv11 exhibits a significant performance enhancement, with a 13.95% improvement in the average precision metric over the baseline model. Over 60% of the measured vessel speed measurement errors are less than 0.5 knots, with an overall average error below 0.45 knots. These findings substantiate the efficacy and superiority of the proposed method in practical applications.