Theory and Application of Vessel Speed Dynamic Control considering Safety and Environmental Factors

Abstract

The implementation of ship speed control is extremely important in the shipping industry. It is affected by various factors, such as water depth, obstacles, and environmental factors. Traditional speed control methods only consider geographical constraints, which is difficult to achieve the goal of safe navigation and maritime traffic efficiency simultaneously. Accordingly, a two-stage speed dynamic control model is proposed in this study. In the first stage, certain safety navigation factors, including obstacles, sea environment conditions, and limit of estimated time of arrival to destination port, are considered. In the second stage, the speed dynamic control model considering safety and environmental factors is established by combining multisource data and particle swarm optimisation algorithm. The model’s superiority and advantage are validated by experiments conducted on an ocean-going ship. The experimental results show that the proposed dynamic speed control model can reduce the ship’s fuel consumption and improve energy efficiency while ensuring the safety navigation. The study is anticipated to be used as a reference for speed dynamic control.