Decision making criteria in autonomous simulation model of ship movement in limited sea areas

Abstract

Autonomous simulation of ship movement, i.e. simulation without human factor applied directly to steering, but rather indirectly with the use of expert database or artificial intelligence methods, can be very effective at early stages of the fairway boundary designing and manoeuvre area determining. A verified autonomous model working in fast time is much less time consuming and no expert navigator requiring in comparison to a classic simulation model. This paper presents calculation methods of a distance to fairway boundary and of domain designation used in such model of automatic ship movement. Final algorithm of domain designation is optimized according to time duration and calculation accuracy. The calculated parameters serve as criteria for the next manoeuvre decision. An exemplary algorithm of the autonomous simulation model of ship movement in fast (accelerated) time, based on these asumptions is presented.