Autonomous collision avoidance system for unmanned vessels: algorithms and software.

Abstract

Ship collision is one of the most substantial concerns in the global maritime transportation industry. Hence, navigation safety is considerably cited topic in maritime literature. Recently, Unmanned Navigation (UN) technology is gradually becoming more widely used across in the field of marine robotics. The paper investigates the problem of navigation safety in the movement control of Unmanned Vessels (UVs). The object of the study is the process of avoiding collisions of UVs. The subject of the research is the algorithms of the autonomous decision-making system and software for preventing vessel collisions during UN. The intent of this article is to improve the safety of UN by developing new Decision-Making algorithms for autonomous collision prevention of UVs in real time, taking into account the International Rules for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea, 1972 (COLREGs-72) and the recommendations of the Federal agency for sea and inland water transport of the Russian Federation (Rosmorrechflot).In this article, the fundamental concept and the key functions set of the Autonomous Collision Avoidance System (ACAS) are carried out for UVs which are marine transport vehicles capable of sensing its environment and operating without human involvement. Along this line of research, this work focuses on the development of a software algorithm for determining the most dangerous obstacle located within a radius of 12 miles (recommendations of Rosmorrechflot) around an UV based on the principle of vessels collision avoidance geometry, collision risk assessment and the characteristics of obstacles. Moreover, the proposed algorithms can prevent the collision and address the issues of real-time collision avoidance for UVs. The simulation results also demonstrate the promising application of the proposed algorithms in studying the UN safety. Nonetheless, this study provides a way forward to conduct a new information decision-making system design for UVs collision avoidance. This is currently under development, and will be proposed later.