Prediction of Depth of Seawater Using Fuzzy C-Means Clustering Algorithm of Crowdsourced SONAR Data

Implementing AI in all fields is a solution to the complications that can be troublesome to solve for human beings and will be the key point of the advancement of those spheres. In the marine world, specialists also encounter some problems that can be revealed through addressing AI and machine learning algorithms. One of these challenges is determining the depth of the seabed with high precision. The depth of the seabed is utterly significant in the procedure of ships at sea occupying a safe route. Thus, it is considerably crucial that the ships do not sit in shallow water. In this article, we have addressed the fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm, which is one of the vigorous unsupervised learning methods under machine learning to solve the mentioned problems. In the case study, crowdsourced data have been trained, which are gathered from vessels that have installed sound navigation and ranging (SONAR) sensors. The data for the training were collected from ships sailing in the south part of South Korea. In the training section, we segregated the training zone into the diminutive size areas (blocks). The data assembled in blocks had been trained in FCM. As a result, we have received data separated into clusters that can be supportive to differentiate data. The results of the effort show that FCM can be implemented and obtain accurate results on crowdsourced bathymetry.