Colloquium Edmund Forland Brekke

Perception and situational awareness in maritime surface autonomy

Sensor fusion plays a fundamental role for all kinds of autonomous vehicles. For autonomy on the sea surface, different sensors are being used depending on the distance. While lidar and camera can give high precision in the near field, radar is necessary for tracking of obstacles further away. In this talk I will provide some snapshots of different sensor combinations and approaches used in research on surface autonomy at NTNU. In particular, we will focus on the use case of autonomous ferries, as represented by the prototypes milliAmpere 1 and milliAmpere 2.

Edmund Brekke received the M.Sc. degree in industrial mathematics in 2005, and the Ph.D. degree in engineering cybernetics in 2010, both from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. From 2010 to 2014, he worked with the Acoustic Research Laboratory (ARL), NUS in Singapore as a postdoctoral Research Fellow. In 2014 he rejoined NTNU and the Department of Engineering Cybernetics, and is currently a Professor in sensor fusion. Brekke’s research interests are in the area of sensor fusion and situational awareness, with a particular focus on multi-target tracking and maritime surface autonomy.