Route Navigation Research Articles

Cities of Crimea in the Works of Arab Geographers of the 12th — 14th Centuries

The paper is devoted to a comparative analysis of information about the cities of the Crimean peninsula in the works of Arab geographers of the 12th — 14th centuries (al-Idrīsī, Ibn Sa‛īd al-Maghribī and Abū al-Fidā’. Despite the continuity of the works of these authors — both in general and in relation to information about the Crimean cities — each of them used his own sources to describe the Crimea, which reflected the main directions of the trade routes passing through the peninsula. The analysis carried out in the paper made it possible to establish the geographical nomenclature of the port cities of Crimea in the 12th — 14th centuries, their role in the Black Sea navigation during this time, and also to reconstruct the map of the navigation routes of this section of the Black Sea.

Development of software for an information system that points the way using augmented reality technology

This paper describes the development process for the map directions information system application utilizing augmented reality technology. The first part of this paper discusses issues related to the research objective formulation. The objective and tasks to be solved are determined. Theoretical information and developments in the subject area are discussed. The second part describes the developed application architecture, the choice of a programming language is explained. The third part expressively addresses the development of algorithms and the application itself. The next section contains instructions for end users. And finally, a summary of the concluded work is given and relevant conclusions are made about the obtained results. It is emphasized that the work leads to the creation of an application for route finding and navigation in augmented reality mode. It is noted that this application can be extended and enhanced by developing versions for other mobile operating systems (for example, iOS and Windows Phone).

The human pressure on the middle Vistula River wildlife: the number and distribution of people and their activity on the river during the breeding season of birds

The study aimed to determine the distribution, numbers, and forms of human activity on the banks and in the riverbed of the middle part of the Vistula River. This section of the river is the most valuable for nature and is located between Puławy and the mouth of the Pilica River (km 373-548 of the navigation route). Censuses were conducted in May-June 2014 and 2015, the breeding season of the key species of the riverbed avifauna. The presence and different forms of human activity were recorded, including fishing, camping, water tourism, hiking, motorized tourism, and grazing animals. The frequent presence of people on the Vistula River was much greater in June than in May. In both months, the most popular form of spending time by humans in the riverbed was fishing. While in areas less valuable for birds, fishing strongly dominated, on parts of the river with key breeding habitats for birds, more aggressive forms of recreation, camping and motorized tourism (quads, motorcycles, off-road vehicles), were reported as often or even more frequently. The increasing popularity of these forms of recreation is a very serious threat to the fauna. They not only disturb the breeding birds but also physically destroy breeding habitats and nests with eggs and increase the mortality of chicks of gulls, terns, and other waders.

Information retrieval for Northern Sea Route (NSR) navigation: A statistical approach using the AIS and TOPAZ4 data

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is becoming a practical passage for transport during the warm season due to Arctic sea ice reduction. There is a need for new navigational support as LNG shipments are increasing in recent years. In this research, a non-heuristic optimal route search is attempted near the New Siberian Islands. The assumption is that an optimal route is related to the surrounding conditions. Accordingly, an empirical formula considering vessel specifications, and environmental condition parameters can predict transit time along a specific course. Then, a route corresponding to the shortest predicted transit time becomes the optimal route. Multi linear and LASSO regressions are applied over the surroundings of the New Siberian Islands, where three routes lie. While the obtained functions are both overfitting models and not suitable for practical prediction, the LASSO one can estimate a more reasonable range of the standardized velocities. The ranges of the standardized velocities to transit through the domain is from 310 to 1640 km and from 310 to 602 km per day predicted by multi linear and LASSO models, respectively. The LASSO regression analysis might be expected to identify points where all the cautions are necessary along the NSR.

Assessment of the State of Ichthyofauna from Danube River – Caleia Branch, Romania: A Sustainable Development Context

Evaluating the state of ichthyofauna at both the Lower Danube level and at the national level contains knowledge gaps regarding species dynamics, with the most complex studies regarding species composition being undertaken more than 50 years ago. Over time, the Danube River - an important navigation route that connects Western Europe with Asia - has suffered a series of anthropogenic interventions that led to river discharge regularization, interruptions of longitudinal/latitudinal connectivity and reductions in floodplain area. These anthropogenic activities may negatively impact suitable fish habitats leading to demographical effects. The Danube is regarded as a river with high species richness that provides a source of income for the local population by the practice of commercial fishing. The area of interest for this study was selected taking into account the fact that, in the last decade, it was subject to hydrotechnical works that aim to redistribute the river discharge to improve navigation conditions. The ichthyofauna population dynamics is analyzed using an 8 year-long dataset that includes baseline data before the project started and a monitoring period after the project ended. The results indicate the presence of 38 fish species (excluding anadromous fish species – sturgeons and shads). The identified fish species are classified in two categories: 1) species of commercial interest and 2) species of Community interest. This study provides evidence that the high mobility capacity of the fish species is the main factor affecting species dynamics as support of the national efforts in action to stop the degradation of aquatic habitats and biodiversity, in response to goal 15 “Life Earth” of the UN 2030 AGENDA for sustainable development.

Real-time urban regional route planning model for connected vehicles based on V2X communication

Advancement in the novel technology of connected vehicles has presented opportunities and challenges for smart urban transport and land use. To improve the capacity of urban transport and optimize land-use planning, a novel real-time regional route planning model based on vehicle to X communication (V2X) is presented in this paper. First, considering the traffic signal timing and phase information collected by V2X, road section resistance values are calculated dynamically based on real-time vehicular driving data. Second, according to the topology structure of the current regional road network, all predicted routes are listed based on the Dijkstra algorithm. Third, the predicted travel time of each alternative route is calculated, while the predicted route with the least travel time is selected as the optimal route. Finally, we design the test scenario with different traffic saturation levels and collect 150 sets of data to analyze the feasibility of the proposed method. The numerical results have shown that the average travel times calculated by the proposed optimal route are 8.97 seconds, 12.54 seconds, and 21.85 seconds, which are much shorter than the results of traditional navigation routes. This proposed model can be further applied to the whole urban traffic network and contribute to a greater transport and land-use efficiency in the future.

Early reliable evidence of the Etruscan shrew (Suncusetruscus) in southwestern Europe during ancient times. Reconstructing its dispersal process along the Mediterranean Basin

This paper reports a new and well dated record of the Etruscan shrew (Suncus etruscus), which is the smallest extant terrestrial mammal, and provides a comprehensive review of the fossil record of this species. Three remains were found in the small vertebrate assemblage of the Estrecho Cave (Cuenca, Spain), which dates from 2310–2290 and 2272–2149 years cal BP. The morphometric analysis performed provided unequivocal traits of this species. We analyse this new record of the Etruscan shrew together with a review of its fossil records along the Mediterranean Basin. Because of the scarcity of reliable records of this species, its origin and palaeobiogeographical history remain still unclear. According to available data, the Etruscan shrew populations that colonised Europe were most probably originated in Asia, where it was present at least since the Middle Pleistocene. Its dispersal process across the Mediterranean Basin shows a pattern in which it progressively extended its distribution towards the west from mid-4th millennium BP onwards. This process most certainly involved the accidental translocation of the species by humans across the Mediterranean through navigation routes, resulting in its introduction into most of the large Mediterranean islands, besides the mainland of Europe and North Africa.

Coordinated Optimal Energy Management and Voyage Scheduling for All-Electric Ships Based on Predicted Shore-Side Electricity Price

Unlike a land-based standalone microgrid, a shipboard microgrid of an all-electric ship (AES) needs to shut down generators during berthing at the port for exanimation and maintenance. Therefore, the cost of onshore power plays an important role in an economic operation for AESs. In order to fully exploit its potential, a two-stage joint scheduling model is proposed to optimally coordinate the power generation and voyage scheduling of an AES. Different from previous studies that only consider the operation cost of the ship itself, a novel coordinated framework is developed in this article to address the shore-side electricity price variations on the ship navigation route. A deep learning-based forecasting method is utilized to predict the electricity price in various harbors for ship operators. Then, a hybrid optimization algorithm is designed to solve the proposed multiobjective joint scheduling problem. A navigation route in Australia is adopted for case studies and simulation results demonstrate the high energy utilization efficiency of the proposed algorithm and the necessity of on-shore power influence on the AES voyage.

Importance of early fault diagnosis for marine diesel engines: a case study on efficiency management and environment

ABSTRACT The efficient management of marine vessels ensures that ships could operate smoothly and navigate at the most efficient level. Thus, the environmentally friendly voyage realises with the optimised running cost. Such a management approach could be achieved via a planned and proper maintenance strategy on the critical parts of the marine vessels’ combustion engines. Accordingly, in this study, some faults that could occur as a result of insufficient operation are combined in various scenarios and obtained results from the engine room simulator are applied in a realistic navigational route to show the results of the management performed with incorrect operations. Comparative indicator diagrams and exhaust gas outlet temperatures of the simulated scenarios are presented. As a result of the inefficient and faulty operations, in all scenarios, the amount of emission gases emitted to the atmosphere and operating expenses increase in parallel with the rise of fuel consumption.

Dangers of the brachial arterial access: myth or reality?

The brachial artery is an interesting alternative for the peripheral endovascular treatments in the event of hostile groins, lesions of the femoral tripod, complex procedures requiring several vascular accesses, but also because it allows an upper route of navigation. Since the literature reports high rates of complications for this access, we conducted a 6-month multicentric prospective study to reappraise its risks.

Service-based Network Selection in C-ITS Vehicular Network

Cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) are made up of vehicular applications and provide a framework for road users and traffic managers to share information between stakeholders. Different access technologies exist that can support V2X communication, however, each one has its own advantage and drawback and cannot be used effectively for all types of services. The alternative to avoid this issue is to employ multiple networks and select the best one available, by using an intelligent network selection algorithm. It is also possible to use extra information, like position and navigation route information, to predict the distances between the hosts to improve the user experience. This work presents the SISS algorithm and compares its performance with the widely used TOPSIS algorithm to decide which network option is the best for each application, taking the service requirements into account.

A Joint Photovoltaic-Dependent Navigation Routing and Energy Storage System Sizing Scheme for More Efficient All-Electric Ships

With the extensive electrification introduced into the shipboard power systems, the navigation routine has become more important in an electric propulsion and solar power integrated ships since various sailing paths and speeds will lead to different operation performances. Unlike traditional navigation, which solves the shortest path problem, a data-driven optimization scheme is developed in this article for a photovoltaic (PV)-dependent navigation routing. In order to minimize the total cost and greenhouse gas emissions of an all-electric ship (AES), a new coordinated optimization framework is proposed to jointly optimize the energy storage system (ESS) sizing and voyage scheduling while considering solar power variations. Several cases are compared to verify the proposed method on a cargo ship, and numeral results reveal that the deep-learning-based forecasting method can better characterize the onboard solar power variations, and the proposed joint optimization framework can well accommodate the onboard PV generation.

Optimal planning of hybrid photovoltaic/battery/diesel generator in ship power system

In line with the increasing concern on the pollution release by marine ships, renewable energy technologies in ships power system has received so much attention. Recently, photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage system (ESS) are been integrated into conventional diesel generator in ships power system Nevertheless, improper sizing of the overall ship power station will result in a high investment cost and increase CO<sub>2</sub> emission. This paper devised a methodology to compute the optimal size of the ESS, PV and diesel generator in a ship power system to minimize CO<sub>2</sub> emission, fuel cost, and investment cost. It is a well-known fact that power generation in a sailing ship depend on the time zone, local time, date, latitude, and longitude along ship navigation route and the condition of the ship power system also differs from power systems on land. The devised method in this paper takes into accounts the geographical and season variation of solar insolation along the route from Lagos (Nigeria) to Conakry (Guinea) and accurately model the power output of PV modules is along the route.

Which communities have better accessibility to green space? An investigation into environmental inequality using big data

Green space accessibility is widely acknowledged as a crucial aspect of a livable environment and human well-being. Whether green space accessibility is equitable among communities is increasingly considered as an issue of environmental justice. Therefore, this study focuses on the possible environmental inequality of green space accessibility that can be found among residential communities in the context of Chinese booming housing market. The case study of Shanghai, China was conducted with the use of big data. A real-time navigation route measurement based on Amap application programming interface (AAPI) was developed to calculate green space accessibility, and housing price was used to indicate dwellers’ socioeconomic status. Bivariate Moran’s I, multiple regression, and spatial lag regression were adopted to explore inequality of green space accessibility among residential communities. The results reveal a spatial inequality of green space accessibility between communities in central portion of the city and those in peri-urban areas. We further found a spatial mismatch between green space accessibility and housing price. Environmental inequality is evident within the inner and middle ring road wherein wealthier communities benefit more from green space accessibility than disadvantaged communities. We attribute these findings to spatial restructuring and green gentrification process in Shanghai. The findings can inform planners and policymakers to determine where and how to implement greening strategies and to gain awareness to prevent environmental inequality.

Detecting urban hot regions by using massive geo-tagged image data

Detecting hot regions plays an important role in urban traffic planning and analytics, which is also useful in self-driving car routing and navigation. In this light, we propose and study a novel urban hot-region detection method by using massive geo-tagged image data. Given a set Q of regions (each region q is made up by a set of geo-tagged images), and a matching threshold θ, if a region q is matched with m other regions, its hot degree is defined by m. The hot-region detection (HRD) search finds the regions with the highest hot degrees. We believe that this type of search may benefit many applications in self-driving cars, including route planning and navigation, and traffic management and analytics in general. The HRD search is challenging due to two reasons. First, how to evaluate the similarity when matching different regions. Second, how to compute the HRD search efficiently, since its time complexity is O(|Q|2). To overcome the challenges, we define a novel spatial-density correlation measure to evaluate the similarity between two regions, and develop a parallel search framework to process the HRD efficiently. In addition, a series of optimization techniques, e.g., pruning techniques, are defined to further enhance the query efficiency. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments on real data sets to study the performance of the developed methods.

Container vessels diversion pattern to trans-Arctic shipping routes and GHG emission abatement potential

ABSTRACT Global shipping pattern is widely used to assess vessel-borne pollution risk and inform environmental policymaking. Due to ice retreat under climate change, new trans-Arctic navigation routes may become feasible and change the shipping and pollution pattern. Motivated by inconsistent conclusions on the economic feasibility of Arctic routes of the literature, this article performs modelling to examine the potential for general diversion pattern to the trans-Arctic routes of the global shipping traffic. While we find some trans-Arctic routes are economically feasible, the diversion potential of trans-Arctic routes may be overestimated. The sample in this work contains 522,691 shipping moves. Results show that a mere 83 moves would reduce distance and 45 would save sailing time through the Arctic; however, 20 moves would reduce shipping cost. Though few diversions may happen, we find that 20 economically feasible trans-Arctic diversions reduce GHG emissions. Their average fuel consumption reduction through the Arctic is 264 metric tons (MT) (reduced by 26%); the range is 125–328 MT. The average CO2e emission is 767 MT (reduced by 24%); the range is 359–954 MT. Most of these voyages are between North America and East Asia. Ship operators may consider making a diversion to achieve the GHG abatement goal.

Pigeons remember visual landmarks after one release and rely upon them more if they are anosmic

Anosmic birds' homing ability is impaired when challenged to navigate over unfamiliar areas. Nevertheless, anosmic pigeons, Columba livia, show unimpaired navigation when released within a familiar area, suggesting that they may rely on familiar visual landmarks for navigation. However, direct evidence for the reliance on familiar visual landmarks during homing in anosmic birds has never been provided. In this study we tracked pigeons subjected singly to one training flight from each of three locations. Prior to their second release from each site, half of the birds were made anosmic while the others were not manipulated. The level of route fidelity was analysed separately for three phases of the homing process, in which familiar visual cues may have different relevance and may be used within different cognitive strategies: (1) ‘Initial decision making’; (2) ‘En route navigation’; (3) ‘Local navigation around home’. Compared to control birds, the anosmic birds flew significantly closer to previously overflown locations in the ‘En route navigation’ phase, while no difference in route fidelity emerged during phases (1) and (3). Our results showed that a single experience is sufficient for pigeons to learn release site features, and that familiar visual landmarks constitute a critical source of navigational information in olfactorily deprived birds during the homing process.

China-Russia collaboration in arctic shipping and maritime engineering

ABSTRACT In the past decades, climate change has been affecting the reduction of ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean and thus providing opportunities for the development of commercial navigation. Many countries are becoming increasingly interested in the exploration of opening maritime routes. Initiating the Polar Silk Road (PSR), China aims at the diversification of its trade routes and linking the markets of Asia and Europe within a network of transport and economic corridors. The initiative requires improvement of navigational safety and passability of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and other major lanes in the Arctic seas. In this paper, the authors discuss how China may collaborate with Russia to ensure the development of secure navigable deep-water shipping routes in the Arctic and to partner in the engineering and construction of large-tonnage tankers and icebreakers. The paper presents an overview of the current condition of the shipbuilding industry in Russia in relation to the construction of vessels and marine equipment in such segments as icebreaking, transport, port, and dredging fleet. The authors conclude with a summary of the existing technological, engineering, and economic obstacles and opportunities for China in the light of the establishment of navigable maritime routes in the Arctic Ocean.

Russian legislation on the Northern Sea Route navigation: scope and trends

ABSTRACT This article shows what steps Russia has taken since 2012 to accomplish the task of the legal regulation of navigation on the Northern Sea Route (NSR). Its first part is devoted to characteristics of the Russian legislation, which defines the territorial extent and legal status of the NSR as historically developed national transport communication of the Russian Federation. The second part contains a brief description of the 2013 Rules of Navigation in the Water Area of the NSR, which are in force in Russia today, in comparison with similar rules of the Soviet Union of 1990. The third part describes the nature of changes made to the Russian legislation in recent years due to changes in the world geopolitical situation, which prescribed a new procedure for allowing foreign ships to carry out certain types of activities in the NSR and a new matrix of interaction between Russian government bodies and organisations to manage this transport communication. The conclusion summarises results of the study and makes assumptions about the possibility of further changes in the Russian legislation on the subject.

Design and optimization of backstepping controller applied to autonomous quadrotor

In this paper a Quadrotor dynamics is exploited. This system dynamics is nonlinear, multivariable, coupled and unstable, and suffers from parameter uncertainties and external disturbances. Hence, controlling of Quadrotor is on demand to meet the stability, robustness, and desired dynamic properties, furthermore, to overcome the hindrance of nonlinearity and to have a system that is pliant to changing parameters and environmental disturbances. Three PID position controllers are used in the outer feedback loop to track the reference trajectory, while the angular rotations are controlled through the inner feedback backstepping control. The control law is derived based on Lyapunov stability theorem to render strong closed-loop stability. The tuning of the gains for both controllers is not convenient with this kind of system model due to high non-linearity and instability. Thereafter, the gains and parameters referred to both controllers are optimized using Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (PSO) to find the best navigation routes and ensure compensation of nonlinearities and disturbances. This is performed by minimizing the 3 Dimensional position errors and 3Angular rotation errors using ITAE as a performance index. Simulation results presented using different types of trajectories have proved the enhancement in motion as compared with previous published papers.