Development of the collision ratio to infer the time at which to begin a collision avoidance of a ship

This paper develops a collision ratio as an index that can be used to determine the time at which to begin the collision avoidance maneuver. The collision ratio is calculated by considering the maneuverability of the own ship, the COLREGs, and three virtual intrusion domains (VIDs). The validity of the inferred collision ratio is then assessed according to the dynamic characteristics of the own ship and the basic knowledge of the collision avoidance algorithm. The results indicate that the proposed collision ratio is suitable for use as a new index to determine the time at which to begin the collision avoidance maneuver.