Tongtong Guo

Achieving autonomous navigation requires Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) to overcome difficulties in recognizing intricate multi-ship encounter situations and developing appropriate collision avoidance strategies. To address the above issues, this study first integrates the Velocity Obstacle (VO) with Closest Point of Approach/Time to Closest Point of Approach (CPA/TCPA) into the collision risk identification of ships. This enables the own ship (OS) to determine the risk posed by target ships (TSs) in the scenario. Secondly, the paper further discusses complex multi-ship encounter scenarios, based on 1972 International Regulations for Preventing Collision at Sea (COLREGs), it classifies responsibilities to determine the set of give-way ship and stand-on ship obligations. Finally, the derived responsibility set is incorporated into Dynamic Window Approach (DWA), allowing the enhanced Multi-Vessels Velocity Obstacle and Improved Dynamic Window Approach (MVO-IDWA) algorithm to automatically select optimal decisions in complex multi-ship encounter scenarios and ensure the ship reaches its destination safely. Centering on the challenge of avoiding collision decision in multi-ship complex encounter scenarios, this paper proposes the integration of ship responsibility sets with the MVO-IDWA algorithm. Analysis of the results establishes that the proposed algorithm can consider the inter-ship responsibilities, risk levels, and movement trends of TSs in multi-ship encounters, thereby realizing autonomous ship collision avoidance.

The prediction model for collision damage to a ship’s side structure plays a crucial role in the design phase. In traditional analytical methods, the bow of the striking ship is often simplified as a rigid body, with the majority of studies focusing on spherical or ellipsoidal bows. This paper focuses on wedge-shaped bows. First, numerical simulation analysis reveals that when the stiffness of the striking ship’s bow is relatively close to that of the struck ship’s side structure, accounting for the elastic–plastic deformation of the bow significantly affects the prediction results of collision damage to the struck ship. Building upon the rigid-body analytical prediction model (RAPM), further consideration of the elastic–plastic deformation of the striking ship’s bow leads to the development of a prediction model that accounts for the coupled collision damage process between the bow and the side structure (CDPM). Comparisons with simulation results and predictions from RAPM demonstrate that CDPM captures the physical process of collision damage more accurately, thereby proving the superiority of this approach over RAPM.