Bio-Inspired Polarization Compass for Solar Azimuth Prediction Under Clear and Cloudy Sky Conditions
Sunlight becomes partially polarized due to Rayleigh scattering while passing through the atmosphere. Many insects such as ants and beetles utilize the polarization information of skylight for navigation. Unlike magnetic compass and GPS, this scheme is free from interference and unlike inertial sche...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IEEE
2025-01-01
|
| Series: | IEEE Access |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10816422/ |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1841554014959828992 |
|---|---|
| author | Devyansh Agarwal Ben Potter Jawad Yaseen Siddiqui Yahia M. M. Antar Muhammad Zulfiker Alam |
| author_facet | Devyansh Agarwal Ben Potter Jawad Yaseen Siddiqui Yahia M. M. Antar Muhammad Zulfiker Alam |
| author_sort | Devyansh Agarwal |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Sunlight becomes partially polarized due to Rayleigh scattering while passing through the atmosphere. Many insects such as ants and beetles utilize the polarization information of skylight for navigation. Unlike magnetic compass and GPS, this scheme is free from interference and unlike inertial schemes, its error does not accumulate with time. In recent years this navigation scheme has received a lot of attention for navigation of aerial and terrestrial vehicles. Development of a polarization compass that can provide accurate heading information in different weather conditions will benefit a wide range of applications. Here we report the application of linear regression for implementation of a polarization compass. The model is trained with real sky images and then used to predict the solar azimuth in both clear and cloudy sky conditions. The root mean square errors for both conditions were less than 1°. We also compared the performance of the proposed scheme with that of Hough transform and support vector machine, which have been successfully utilized for the same application in the past. Linear regression outperformed Hough transform for all sky conditions considered, and its performance was comparable with support vector machine. However, unlike the other two methods considered, the accuracy of linear regression will increase significantly when trained with a large set of sky images. Therefore, with sufficient training, linear regression can be a promising option for implementation of polarization compass. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-10996ec83441438994bb6f2ec4771037 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj-art-10996ec83441438994bb6f2ec47710372025-01-09T00:01:51ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-01133242325010.1109/ACCESS.2024.352324910816422Bio-Inspired Polarization Compass for Solar Azimuth Prediction Under Clear and Cloudy Sky ConditionsDevyansh Agarwal0https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9049-5227Ben Potter1Jawad Yaseen Siddiqui2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3322-847XYahia M. M. Antar3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8794-1481Muhammad Zulfiker Alam4https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8889-9756Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, CanadaDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, CanadaDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, ON, CanadaDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, CanadaDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, CanadaSunlight becomes partially polarized due to Rayleigh scattering while passing through the atmosphere. Many insects such as ants and beetles utilize the polarization information of skylight for navigation. Unlike magnetic compass and GPS, this scheme is free from interference and unlike inertial schemes, its error does not accumulate with time. In recent years this navigation scheme has received a lot of attention for navigation of aerial and terrestrial vehicles. Development of a polarization compass that can provide accurate heading information in different weather conditions will benefit a wide range of applications. Here we report the application of linear regression for implementation of a polarization compass. The model is trained with real sky images and then used to predict the solar azimuth in both clear and cloudy sky conditions. The root mean square errors for both conditions were less than 1°. We also compared the performance of the proposed scheme with that of Hough transform and support vector machine, which have been successfully utilized for the same application in the past. Linear regression outperformed Hough transform for all sky conditions considered, and its performance was comparable with support vector machine. However, unlike the other two methods considered, the accuracy of linear regression will increase significantly when trained with a large set of sky images. Therefore, with sufficient training, linear regression can be a promising option for implementation of polarization compass.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10816422/Wave polarization and propagationRayleigh scatteringbio-inspired opticsnavigation |
| spellingShingle | Devyansh Agarwal Ben Potter Jawad Yaseen Siddiqui Yahia M. M. Antar Muhammad Zulfiker Alam Bio-Inspired Polarization Compass for Solar Azimuth Prediction Under Clear and Cloudy Sky Conditions IEEE Access Wave polarization and propagation Rayleigh scattering bio-inspired optics navigation |
| title | Bio-Inspired Polarization Compass for Solar Azimuth Prediction Under Clear and Cloudy Sky Conditions |
| title_full | Bio-Inspired Polarization Compass for Solar Azimuth Prediction Under Clear and Cloudy Sky Conditions |
| title_fullStr | Bio-Inspired Polarization Compass for Solar Azimuth Prediction Under Clear and Cloudy Sky Conditions |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bio-Inspired Polarization Compass for Solar Azimuth Prediction Under Clear and Cloudy Sky Conditions |
| title_short | Bio-Inspired Polarization Compass for Solar Azimuth Prediction Under Clear and Cloudy Sky Conditions |
| title_sort | bio inspired polarization compass for solar azimuth prediction under clear and cloudy sky conditions |
| topic | Wave polarization and propagation Rayleigh scattering bio-inspired optics navigation |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10816422/ |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT devyanshagarwal bioinspiredpolarizationcompassforsolarazimuthpredictionunderclearandcloudyskyconditions AT benpotter bioinspiredpolarizationcompassforsolarazimuthpredictionunderclearandcloudyskyconditions AT jawadyaseensiddiqui bioinspiredpolarizationcompassforsolarazimuthpredictionunderclearandcloudyskyconditions AT yahiammantar bioinspiredpolarizationcompassforsolarazimuthpredictionunderclearandcloudyskyconditions AT muhammadzulfikeralam bioinspiredpolarizationcompassforsolarazimuthpredictionunderclearandcloudyskyconditions |