# Hierarchical Two-Stage Framework for Environment-Aware Long-Horizon Vessel Trajectory Prediction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16442 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.16442/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 39 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Informer: Beyond Efficient Transformer for Long Sequence Time-Series Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.07436/) (2020)
- [Fundamentals of Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.03314/) (2018)
- [Spatio-Temporal Graph Transformer Networks for Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.08514/) (2020)
- [Transformer Networks for Trajectory Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08111/) (2020)
- [TrAISformer -- A Transformer Network with Sparse Augmented Data Representation and Cross Entropy Loss for AIS-based Vessel Trajectory Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.03958/) (2021)
- [MSTFormer: Motion Inspired Spatial-temporal Transformer with Dynamic-aware Attention for long-term Vessel Trajectory Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11540/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

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.