A Research on Autonomous Collision Avoidance under the Constraint of COLREGs

In this paper, a decision-making model suitable for the collision avoidance (CA) of numerous target ships (TSs) is proposed, based on the principle of ship collision avoidance geometry and the characteristics of numerous target ships’ collision avoidance at sea. To ensure that the collision avoidance behaviors of own-ship (OS) are subject to the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS), this paper gives full consideration to the requirements of COLREGS within the scope of CA action and the time of collision avoidance. A ship CA simulation is established based on the Mathematical Modeling Group (MMG) model. To optimize the CA decision-making model, the influence of hydrodynamic force on steering time required to reach the new course is integrated into the collision avoidance simulation system. The simulation results show that the method can quickly and effectively determine a collision avoidance decision under the complex situation of numerous target ships and static obstacles, and it can consider the unpredictable strategies used by other vessels.