Adding the Human Element to Ship Manoeuvring Simulations

Abstract

Time-domain simulation of ship manoeuvring has been utilized in risk analysis to assess the effect of changes to the ship-lane, development in traffic volume and the associated risk. The process of ship manoeuvring in a wider socio-technical context consists of the technical systems, operational procedures, the human operators and support functions. Automated manoeuvring simulations without human operators in the simulation loop have often been preferred in simulation studies due to the low time required for simulations. Automatic control has represented the human element with little effort devoted to explain the relationship between the guidance and control algorithms and the human operator which they replace. This paper describes the development and application of a model for the human element for autonomous time-domain manoeuvring simulations. The method is applicable in the time-domain, modular and found to be capable of reproducing observed manoeuvre patterns, but limited to represent the intended behaviour.