Multi-target collision avoidance route planning under an ECDIS framework

The universality of the automatic identification system (AIS) as well as the electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS) installations will provide revolutionary solution schemes for the e-navigation era of informatization, intellectualization, and integration. Based on this concept, this study adopted ECDIS as an information platform for navigational decision support and used the real-time navigation information received by the AIS to construct predicted areas of danger (PAD) for target ships. The advantages of direct viewing via the PAD in the collision avoidance give PAD a new application. Subsequently, spatial data from an electronic navigation chart (ENC) was employed as a basis for generating geographical obstacles. Through the integration of a geographic information system (GIS) module, specially designed evolutionary computation, and collision prevention regulations (COLREGS) knowledge as well as by comprehensively considering overall navigation situations, this system conducted obstacle avoidance processing and selection of a route. The system could generate a route that could simultaneously achieve multi-ship encounter collision avoidance and geographical obstacle avoidance. This is expected to provide mariners with greater convenience when working at sea, reducing their workload. This system can also be used as a reference for collision avoidance decision making.