Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gnanavel, Ganeshaaraj, Fernando, Tharindu, Sridharan, Sridha, Fookes, Clinton
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16442
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866914571189485568
author Gnanavel, Ganeshaaraj
Fernando, Tharindu
Sridharan, Sridha
Fookes, Clinton
author_facet Gnanavel, Ganeshaaraj
Fernando, Tharindu
Sridharan, Sridha
Fookes, Clinton
contents Long-horizon vessel trajectory forecasting under real ocean conditions is critical for collision avoidance, traffic management, and route planning. However, achieving accurate predictions is challenging due to long-range temporal dependencies and dynamic environmental factors such as currents, wind, and waves. To address these issues, we propose a hierarchical two-stage framework that combines a coarse long-term predictor with a grid-aware short-term predictor through a hierarchical fusion mechanism. The short-term branch leverages a Spatio-Temporal Graph Transformer on discretized maritime cells to capture localized dynamics, while the long-term branch encodes overarching navigational intent. An integrated environmental module incorporates oceanographic parameters, including surface currents, wind vectors, and significant wave height, using cross-modal attention and feature-wise modulation for adaptive response to varying sea conditions. Additionally, a learnable Savitzky-Golay smoothing layer enhances temporal coherence in fused trajectories. We evaluate our approach on Australian Craft Tracking System (CTS) data from the North West region, aligned with Copernicus Marine Service products, using a 3-hour input and a 10-hour prediction horizon. Experimental results show that our framework outperforms the state-of-the-art by 25% in Average Displacement Error (ADE) and 17% in Final Displacement Error (FDE). Ablation studies further validate the contribution of each component.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_16442
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Hierarchical Two-Stage Framework for Environment-Aware Long-Horizon Vessel Trajectory Prediction
Gnanavel, Ganeshaaraj
Fernando, Tharindu
Sridharan, Sridha
Fookes, Clinton
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Long-horizon vessel trajectory forecasting under real ocean conditions is critical for collision avoidance, traffic management, and route planning. However, achieving accurate predictions is challenging due to long-range temporal dependencies and dynamic environmental factors such as currents, wind, and waves. To address these issues, we propose a hierarchical two-stage framework that combines a coarse long-term predictor with a grid-aware short-term predictor through a hierarchical fusion mechanism. The short-term branch leverages a Spatio-Temporal Graph Transformer on discretized maritime cells to capture localized dynamics, while the long-term branch encodes overarching navigational intent. An integrated environmental module incorporates oceanographic parameters, including surface currents, wind vectors, and significant wave height, using cross-modal attention and feature-wise modulation for adaptive response to varying sea conditions. Additionally, a learnable Savitzky-Golay smoothing layer enhances temporal coherence in fused trajectories. We evaluate our approach on Australian Craft Tracking System (CTS) data from the North West region, aligned with Copernicus Marine Service products, using a 3-hour input and a 10-hour prediction horizon. Experimental results show that our framework outperforms the state-of-the-art by 25% in Average Displacement Error (ADE) and 17% in Final Displacement Error (FDE). Ablation studies further validate the contribution of each component.
title Hierarchical Two-Stage Framework for Environment-Aware Long-Horizon Vessel Trajectory Prediction
topic Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16442