Codification of Good Seamanship in Complex and Congested Waterways

This paper presents a novel method to quantify seafarers' good seamanship during navigation scenarios with multi-vessel encounters -- in open and confined waters --, and to compute COLREG's-compliant trajectories for avoiding collision and grounding. The quantification of good seamanship requires knowledge about the state of the vessels (position, heading, and speed) and the surrounding sailing environment. Such information is accessible through the AIS system and the electronic nautical chart. The proposed method evaluates mutual collision risk by examining domain violations of each vessel, and comparing them to the seaman's actions. This results in a comprehensive metric of good seamanship. As risk free actions are not always possible in the resolution of a potential collision and grounding, the method adopts a branch-and-bound scheme to identify achievable maneuvers that minimize the risk. Further, the dynamic nature of vessel speed in congested scenarios is considered, recognizing potential changes in both own and target vessels' forward speeds. The proposed method is experimentally evaluated using historical AIS data and sea charts of Danish waters. This research contributes to the field by providing a more realistic perspective on seamanship in complex maritime environments.
Comment: The 15th IFAC Conference on Control Applications in Marine Systems, Robotics, and Vehicles (CAMS 2024)