Autonomous ship navigation and collision avoidance using harmonic potential field

• 1、Shanghai Maritime University

Abstract：Autonomous ship navigation technology is a promising approach to reduce human errors in maritime accidents. Artificial Potential Field method has been successfully employed for path planning of autonomous mobile robot and it can also be effective for ship navigation and collision avoidance at sea. The problem of local minima, however, should be properly tackled. Harmonic functions can be used to eliminate the problem. In this paper, harmonic functions are used in defining the potential field. Proper boundary conditions are chosen to solve the navigation planning problem for ships. With harmonic potential field, ship navigation route can be generated automatically in constrained water areas, as well as at open sea, and the tracks of the ships can follow the navigational regulations and general practice of seaman, for the specific region. Computer simulations are conducted for two typical water areas such as Traffic Separation Scheme and narrow channel. The simulations illustrate satisfied results for path planning of ship navigation and collision avoidance

Keywords： autonomous ship navigation collision avoidance potential field harmonic function motion planning