Ship path planning based on safety potential field in inland rivers

Abstract

With the growth of the shipping trade, inland water traffic is getting more prosperous than ever. Meanwhile, the shipping risk in inland rivers increases gradually. In this paper, a path planning model based on the safety potential field theory is proposed for inland ships from the perspective of navigation risk. Firstly, different navigation risks for inland ships are defined based on the safety potential field theory for three types of obstacles including static obstacles, dynamic obstacles and waterway bank walls. Secondly, different potential fields are used to quantify the different navigation risks. Then, the superposition field is formulated by summing the above three potential fields, and the spatial distribution of the safety potential field is obtained. Finally, the minimum navigation risk points on each cross section, which is perpendicular to the navigation direction, are selected to formulate the optimal path. In addition, a case study of overtaking scenario is conducted using the proposed model. The simulation results show that the model can effectively describe the navigation risk, which could be used to generate the optimal path for ships in inland rivers. This research is of great importance for ship navigation in inland rivers.