Automated Collision Resolution for Vessel Traffic Management by Using Cooperative Multi-Agent Negotiation

Abstract

One of the most important functions of VTS is to resolve collision among vessels by giving anti-collision advice. In the past, the advice was generated by manual ARPA plotting which may lead to heavy workload. Recently, AIS are widely deployed on vessels. Therefore, VTS can collect more accurate data about the movement of the vessels than before. That makes it possible to generate anti-collision advice automatically. In this research, we built a cooperative multi-agent negotiation system to generate anti-collision instructions for VTS operators. This system can create a software agent for each vessel, constantly monitors their movement, detects the collision risk, and initiates a negotiation process if collision risk exists. Agents negotiate with each other complying with monotonic concession protocol to make themselves more and more concessive until an agreement is achieved. Simulation results show that this system can generate safe and economic anti-collision instructions for VTS operators, and the application of this research shall improve the efficiency of VTSs.