Deconflicting Maritime Autonomous Surface Ship Traffic using Moving Havens

Abstract

Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS), are now on the agenda of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). In several countries research on autonomous navigation is ongoig. If realized, MASS will for the foreseeable future need to cooperate with traditional manned ships on the oceans and the interaction between automatic and manual ships will become a major concern. A primary goal for MASS research is that an autonomous vessel should behave just like any other ship and follow the rules of the road. This paper starts out by looking at a normal, trivial accident and points to e-Navigation as a solution to interactions problems present both in todays manned shipping, which might become even more apparent with future interaction with MASS. A new concept of Moving Havens will be presented to visualise ships intentions both in the geographical and time domain. The concept has been investigated in some earlier e-Navigation projects regarding Ship Traffic Management, but for MASS it might become a means of deconflicting traffic. The concept has been tested technically but needs more thorough research in simulator studies to study human-machine interaction effects.