An Optimized Collision Avoidance Decision-Making System for Autonomous Ships under Human-Machine Cooperation Situations

Abstract

Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASSs) are attracting increasing attention in recent years as it brings new opportunities for water transportation. Previous studies aim to propose fully autonomous system on collision avoidance decisions and operations, either focus on supporting conflict detection or providing with collision avoidance decisions. However, the human-machine cooperation is essential in practice at the first stage of automation. An optimized collision avoidance decision-making system is proposed in this paper, which involves risk appetite (RA) as the orientation. The RA oriented collision avoidance decision-making system (RA-CADMS) is developed based on human-machine interaction during ship collision avoidance, while being consistent with the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS) and Ordinary Practice of Seamen (OPS). It facilitates automatic collision avoidance and safeguards the MASS remote control. Moreover, the proposed RA-CADMS are used in several encounter situations to demonstrate the preference. The results show that the RA-CADMS is capable of providing accurate collision avoidance decisions, while ensuring efficiency of MASS maneuvering under different RA.