A novel approach to hazard evaluation for MASS operation based on a hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set

Expert judgment has been widely utilized in ship risk assessment. The traditional method is believed to be capable of processing only designated linguistic variables, which fails to capture the degree of expert hesitation in assessing a complex system. A novel model, the bi-independent hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set (BHFLTS), based on the hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set (HFLTS), is proposed to incorporate this hesitation. This paper also identifies ten navigational hazards to maritime autonomous surface ship (MASS) operation based on a literature review. In addition, the BHFLTS approach combined with the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) is utilized for hazard assessment and ranking, and with this method, “Collision avoidance decision algorithm malfunction”, “Ship situation awareness system failure” and “Command transmission system failure” are rated as the top three navigational hazards that threaten MASS operation.