Watchdog For Assuring COLREG Compliance of Autonomous Unmanned Surface Vessels That Include Artificial Intelligence

This paper discusses the progress of a research project investigating novel methods for assuring COLREGs compliance for autonomous unmanned surface vessels. The COLREGs are regulations set by the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972. The COLREGs provide instruction for how vessels should maneuver with respect to each other to avoid collisions. The motivating example for this research is a scenario where an unmanned surface vessel (USV) that has not yet violated the COLREGs is in a multi-vessel scenario where it is subject to conflicting rules, leading to no admissible actions. The methods detailed in this paper enable a Watchdog software to recognize such situations as they evolve and take action to prevent the USV’s primary controller from reaching a state where it has no admissible action.