Formal Collision Avoidance Analysis for Rigorous Building of Autonomous Marine Vehicles

Unmanned Marine Vehicles (UMVs), like their aerial cousins Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), are not easily classified under existing legal regimes. Even though unmanned, should these seagoing drones be treated as ‘vessels’ under the Law of the Sea Convention articles on navigation rights and duties? Are they ‘vessels’ under the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs, 1972)? If so, should they be accorded a manoeuvring priority vis-à-vis other vessels? Are the differences between autonomous UMVs and the increasingly automated manned vessels all that great, such that classification should turn on whether the vessel is manned rather than on how navigation and collision avoidance decisions are made and executed?

Download Full-text

Collision Avoidance for Underactuated Marine Vehicles Using the Constant Avoidance Angle Algorithm

IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology ◽

10.1109/tcst.2019.2903451 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 28 (3) ◽

pp. 951-966 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Martin Syre Wiig ◽

Kristin Ytterstad Pettersen ◽

Thomas Robekk Krogstad

Keyword(s):

Collision Avoidance ◽

Marine Vehicles ◽

Underactuated Marine Vehicles

Download Full-text

An Automatic Collision Avoidance and Guidance System for Marine Vehicles in Confined Waters

Journal of Navigation ◽

10.1017/s0373463300000059 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 39 (2) ◽

pp. 180-190 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

M. J. Dove ◽

R. S. Burns ◽

C. T. Stockel

Keyword(s):

Collision Avoidance ◽

Traffic Management ◽

High Standard ◽

Guidance System ◽

Operating Costs ◽

Management Systems ◽

Marine Vehicles ◽

Marine Traffic ◽

High Standards

There can be little doubt that the overall standards of safety at sea are high, particularly with the traditional maritime nations. Cockcroft states that of a total of 22600 ships over 1000 g.r.t trading in 1979, 9400 were from the traditional maritime nations. He goes on to say that during the period 1977–9 these countries lost 16 ships out of a total of 189 worldwide losses. Thus the traditional maritime nations ran 41·59 per cent of the ships and incurred only 8·4 per cent of the losses. This does suggest that high standards are not universal and there may be considerable resentment among operators of high standard ships when casualties to sub-standard vessels result in the implementation of measures, such as marine traffic management systems, which give rise to increased operating costs.

Download Full-text