A Target Information Display for Visualising Collision Avoidance Manoeuvres in Various Visibility Conditions

Abstract

The paper introduces a new approach to displaying information on targets. The proposed display visualises three types of information: targets' motion parameters (typical for target tracking), combinations of own course and speed which collide with those targets (typical for Collision Threat Parameters Area display by Lenart (1983)) and combinations of own course and speed which are not compliant with COLREGS in this case (based on ships' motion parameters and visibility conditions). A superposition of the last two types of data enables a navigator to quickly choose a collision avoidance manoeuvre which is both sufficient and COLREGS-compliant. Additionally, the displayed data may be filtered based on the remaining Time To Collision (TTC) so that navigators can concentrate on direct threats. The paper includes a description of the proposed visualisation technique as well as examples of visualised data for some encounter situations.