Dynamic Ice Field Perception and Panoramic Map Generation for Polar Navigation
Speaker:
Prof. Dongfang Ma
Ocean college, Zhejiang University
Date: Dec 19, 2025 (Friday)
Time: 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Venue: Room 612B, 6/F Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong
Abstract
Safe and efficient polar navigation requires high-precision, real-time panoramic ice maps across long voyages. Yet conventional visual mapping techniques struggle in this environment due to sparse surface textures, severe six-degree-of-freedom ship motion during icebreaking, and long-term accumulated drift. To address these challenges, we present a two-stage visual mapping framework designed for the dynamics of polar ice fields.
First, we introduce a single-epoch construction method based on motion-compensated inverse projection. Initial inverse projection uses INS pose estimation to support feature registration, followed by a refined inverse projection optimized through bundle adjustment to mitigate view distortion induced by violent ship motion. Building upon this foundation, we then propose a multi-epoch incremental mapping strategy that integrates hybrid feature matching with a sliding window filter. Embedding GPS constraints within the sliding window effectively suppresses accumulated drift and ensures global pose consistency throughout extended navigation sequences.
From single-frame correction to globally consistent map generation, this work delivers a complete solution for robust visual perception in highly dynamic polar environments.
About the speaker
Ma Dongfang, male, Ph.D., Professor, Ocean college, Zhejiang University, and a reserve leader in the construction industry in Zhoushan. He is mainly engaged in the research and practice of marine data mining, intelligent control theory and methods, and internet of things. He graduated from Jilin University in June 2012 with a Ph.D. degree in traffic information engineering and control. He joined the postdoctoral research station of civil engineering at Zhejiang University in the same year as a postdoctoral researcher. In July 2015, he joined Ocean University of Zhejiang University as a teacher. As project leader, he has presided over the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, the China Postdoctoral Science Fund Project, and the China National Postdoctoral Fund Special Funding Project, Zhejiang Province key science and technology innovation team project, the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Science Fund project. Published about 20 SCI journal papers (the first and correspondent authors).
