Business Background
1. At around 05:30 on February 22, 2024, a container ship, while transiting the Hongqi Lishui Channel, struck a pier of the Lixinsha Bridge due to adverse weather conditions and the vessel’s deviation from its intended course, resulting in a rupture of the bridge deck. The accident led to the deaths of five people and minor injuries to one crew member.
2. On June 15, 2007, a sand-carrying vessel, due to deviation from its course, collided with the Jiujiang Bridge in Guangdong Province, causing the bridge deck to collapse and resulting in 8 deaths and 1 missing person.

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Policy Guidance Direction
In 2024, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Transport issued the “Notice on Supporting and Guiding the Digital Transformation and Upgrading of Highway and Waterway Transportation Infrastructure,” stipulating that, between 2024 and 2026, 70% of key high-grade inland waterways will complete digital upgrades and transformations, with millimeter-wave radar and other intelligent sensing devices becoming indispensable components of bridge safety monitoring.

Pain Points in Bridge Collision Prevention
Complex waterways: The waterway is long, winding, with swift currents and frequent changes in vessel heading, necessitating a sensing device that can accurately and reliably determine the vessel’s position.
Extreme Weather: Adverse weather conditions such as dense fog (visibility <100 m) and heavy rainfall pose significant challenges. There is an urgent need for intelligent devices that can operate effectively in all weather conditions around the clock to enable reliable monitoring.
Difficulties in manual observation: With a large and varied number of vessels passing through, manual observation is unable to handle multiple targets simultaneously and suffers from significant measurement errors. There is a need for an intelligent sensing device capable of active detection and multi-target tracking to achieve precise identification.
 

Current Market Solution Comparison

1. Existing Active Collision-Warning Systems for Bridges

CCTV surveillance, AIS vessel automatic reporting, LiDAR

2. Millimeter-wave radar + vision characteristics

• High-precision radar positioning and guidance enable the HD PTZ camera to track target trajectories and focus on fine details, such as ship hull numbers.
• The radar provides a 90° wide horizontal field of view, a maximum detection range of 1.5 to 3 km, full coverage of river channels, and high-precision vessel positioning.
• Millimeter waves exhibit low propagation attenuation and strong penetration, are minimally affected by natural light and thermal radiation sources, and can operate effectively in a wide range of complex weather and environmental conditions.
• The radar features “plug-and-play” functionality, leveraging an integrated design and built-in chips to actively detect targets and directly output processed bearing information.
  Taking into account factors such as overall equipment performance, reliability, and cost, millimeter-wave radar combined with vision is a highly cost-effective solution.

Millimeter-Wave Radar System Solution
1. System Architecture

Core operation of millimeter-wave radar:

• Precisely locate vessels within the waterway, predict their motion trends up to 1 km ahead, and issue VHF alerts when targets with a risk of deviation are detected.
• Track the trajectories of vessels within the river channel; automatically trigger an alarm for any vessel that deviates from its course within a 500-meter radius, with integrated audio-visual and lighting-based early warning via LED displays and directional voice announcements.
• When a vessel enters a hazardous collision zone, radar records its complete track, while visual systems capture vessel-specific characteristics (such as the hull number), facilitating post-incident investigation and evidence collection.

2. WTR1500W
The WTR1500W is a wide-beam, area-based waterway track-monitoring radar with a detection range of up to 1,500 meters. It employs FMCW modulation and integrates advanced technologies such as MIMO, TBD, JPDA, and micro-Doppler sensing, enabling high-precision measurement of target range, bearing, and other parameters. Leveraging neural-network-based radar environment perception, the system effectively suppresses false targets caused by vegetation, birds, and wave splash. Key features include high sensitivity, an extensive detection range, strong environmental adaptability, accurate detection, ease of integration, stable performance, and excellent cost-effectiveness.

3. On-site radar installation
On-site equipment: two upstream/downstream millimeter-wave radars, two high-definition dome cameras, and one server.
Method 1: Millimeter-wave radar installed at the center of the bridge

Applicable scenarios: limited budget, straight-line distance of the navigation channel exceeding 500 meters, and leveraging the radar’s maximum detection performance to monitor vessel positions and courses within the channel.
 

Method 2: Side-mounted millimeter-wave radar on both sides of the bridge

Applicable scenarios: ample budget, straight-line waterway distance < 500 m, effective reduction of radar blind spots, and detection area coverage of bridge pier locations;
 

Method 3: Millimeter-wave radar is installed at the far bank to detect the bridge direction.

Applicable scenarios: ample budget, straight-line waterway distance greater than 500 meters, effective reduction of radar blind spots, coverage of bridge pier locations, and preservation of the radar’s long-range detection performance.

Customer Benefits
Real-time monitoring and alarm: By implementing proactive alerts through the system for both vessel operators and regulatory authorities, the incidence of risky behaviors can be reduced, thereby mitigating potential threats arising from crew operational errors.

All-time, all-weather technological upgrades: Leveraging the advantages of continuous, proactive detection of passing vessels through new technologies to offset staffing shortages and fatigue-related operational challenges holds tremendous practical significance for enhancing the safety of waterway transportation hubs.