Artificial Intelligence-Based Methods for Decision Support to Avoid Collisions at Sea

Ship collisions cause major losses in terms of property, equipment, and human lives. Therefore, more investigations should be focused on this problem, which mainly results from human error during ship control. Indeed, to reduce human error and considerably improve the safe traffic of ships, an intelligent tool based on fuzzy set theory is proposed in this paper that helps navigators make fast and competent decisions in eventual collision situations. Moreover, as a result of selecting the shortest collision avoidance trajectory, our tool minimizes energy consumption. The main aim of this paper was the development of a decision-support system based on an artificial intelligence technique for safe ship trajectory determination in collision situations. The ship’s trajectory optimization is ensured by multistage decision making in collision situations in a fuzzy environment. Furthermore, the navigator’s subjective evaluation in decision making is taken into account in the process model and is included in the modified membership function of constraints. A comparative analysis of two methods, i.e., a method based on neural networks and a method based on the evolutionary algorithm, is presented. The proposed technique is a promising solution for use in real time in onboard decision-support systems. It demonstrated a high accuracy in finding the optimal collision avoidance trajectory, thus ensuring the safety of the crew, property, and equipment, while minimizing energy consumption.