BEIJING -- Chinese researchers have developed a set of panoramic vision equipment to conduct 360-degree maritime monitoring, as reported by the Science and Technology Daily on Monday. The equipment has successfully completed the target identification task of an unmanned ship test project.

The equipment, facilitated by the high resolution multi-mode panoramic vision system, was developed over 14 years by the College of Intelligent Systems Science and Engineering at Harbin Engineering University.

"We focus on the difficulties of intelligent visual perception system to learn about the technical applications such as environmental perception and target detection," said Cai Chengtao, a professor at the college.

In response to the urgent demands for real-time performance, high resolution and low power consumption, the researchers designed a circular symmetric lens layout. The lenses were arranged in two vertical layers, according to the report.

Such an innovative approach has broken through the limitations of conventional vision systems in terms of field-of-view blind spots, wide-area perception, balancing high-resolution details, and all-weather adaptability.

The system integrates visible light and infrared dual-mode data to enhance target perception in complex environments, effectively improving the quality of panoramic image acquisition in low-light conditions.

The panoramic vision equipment applies the latest home-made infrared imaging core and microprocessors and improved the computing power, said Zeng Bowen, a teacher at the College of Intelligent Systems Science and Engineering, adding that it has longer-range and more stable thermal imaging capabilities.

The results of the study showed that the equipment performed exceptionally well in the visual recognition of intelligent ships, environmental detection, automatic driving and intelligent transportation.