A Unified Analytical Framework for Ship Domains

Abstract

Most of the existing typical ship domains have been comprehensively reviewed and classified. Most of these ship domains are described in a geometrical manner that is difficult to apply to practices and simulations in marine traffic engineering. According to different types of geometrical ship domains, we have proposed mathematical models, based on which a unified analytical framework has been established. It is feasible and practical for the analytical models to be applied to the assessment of navigational safety, collision avoidance and trajectory planning, etc. Finally, some computer simulations and comparative studies of the proposed domain model have been presented and the simulation results show that the uniform analytical framework for ship domains is effective and identical to the original geometrical ones. It should be noted that the analytical domain models could be directly applied in any collision risk, collision avoidance or VTS system while the geometrical ones would be more illustrative but less practical or analytical.