A Method for Coastal Global Route Planning of Unmanned Ships Based on Human-like Thinking

Abstract

Global route planning has garnered global scholarly attention as a crucial technology for ensuring the safe navigation of intelligent ships. The comprehensive influence of time-varying factors such as water depth, prohibited areas, navigational tracks, and traffic separation scheme (TSS) on ship navigation in coastal global route planning has not been fully considered in existing research, and the study of route planning method from the perspective of practical application is still needed. In this paper, a global route planning method based on human-like thinking for coastal sailing scenarios is proposed. Based on the historical route’s information, and taking into full consideration those time-varying factors, an abnormal waypoint detection and correction method is proposed to make the planned route conform to relevant regulations of coastal navigation and the common practices of seafarers as much as possible, and better meet the coastal navigation needs of unmanned ships. Taking the global route planning of “ZHIFEI”, China’s first autonomous navigation container ship, as an example, the validity and reliability of the proposed method are verified. Experimental findings demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method in global route planning for coastal navigation ships. The method offers a solid theoretical foundation and technical guidance for global route planning research of unmanned ship.