A concept of critical safety area applicable for an obstacle-avoidance process for manned and autonomous ships

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2021-10

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Mcode

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en

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Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Volume 214

Abstract

In times of increased automation of maritime transportation, ship collision with a stationary obstacle (allision) remains a significant problem. There are many existing solutions rooted primarily in the concept of ship domain and path-planning algorithms. However, among these, a geometrical approach to the determination of a required maneuvering area considering the dynamic nature of ship operations in close-quarters situations is still missing. Therefore, an improved concept of the CADCA (Collision Avoidance Dynamic Critical Area) is introduced for the case of ship allision. The CADCA is a deterministic zone that geometrically delimits required maneuvering space of a vessel. Its shape changes depending on the operational parameters of a ship, such as the magnitude of rudder angle, initial forward speed, or planned alteration of the course. In contrast to ship domain, the CADCA is determined using the critical distance between two objects called MDTC (Minimum Distance to Collision). Therefore, the CADCA concept can be used to appoint a position of no-return in a close-quarters situation, so as to determine the time and distance of the last-minute maneuver. An improved method of CADCA determination is introduced, along with an investigation of operational factors influencing the ship's critical area in allision scenarios. The simulations have been conducted for large passenger and container ship in encounters with various stationary obstacles differing in size and shape. The results indicate that from the operational point of view, a deflection of the rudder is the most influencing factor on the size of the CADCA, while the impact of ship speed is negligible for the investigated vessels. Besides, various applications of the CADCA are proposed and discussed for both manned and prospective autonomous vessels.

Description

Funding Information: This research work was supported by the Gdynia Maritime University internal grant WN/PZ/2021/02. Funding Information: The author is grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism and valuable comments. The author expresses his gratitude to Prof. Jerzy Matusiak of Aalto University for making the LaiDyn code available, as well as to Dr. Tomasz Hinz of Waterborne Transport Innovation Foundation for preparing LaiDyn output files containing ship trajectories. This research work was supported by the Gdynia Maritime University internal grant WN/PZ/2021/02. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s)

Keywords

allision, Collision Avoidance Dynamic Critical Area (CADCA), critical area, evasive maneuver, maritime risk and safety, ship maneuvering area

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Citation

Gil, M 2021, ' A concept of critical safety area applicable for an obstacle-avoidance process for manned and autonomous ships ', Reliability Engineering and System Safety, vol. 214, 107806 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2021.107806