A graphical collision alert system of power-driven ship in sight situations considering geometric encounter situations

This paper proposes a power-driven ship collision alert model considering geometric encounter situations in sight situations by collecting the natural environment, ship static and dynamitic information. The kernel of the proposed method is to introduce a ship geometric encounter model to determine the ship encounter situation and to identify the influencing factors, including ship position, ship speed and ship heading, by considering ship-ship collision situations. These factors, together with ship static parameters and natural environment, are treated as input variables to derive the collision risk through a fuzzy inference system. The merit of developed model is that the relative bearing, collision distances and relative course are intuitively described by graphical user interface, which can assist the crew well understand the decision of machine and can be applied to human-machine collaboration for intelligent ship (e.g. remotely control ship). Moreover, from further analysis, the nearest point and the actions taken at the nearest point provide a useful alert for collision risk. From these analyses, the proposed model can be used to improve ship handling and reduce the probability of collision during ship encounters.