Vessels sailing in a single platoon could reduce resistance from the perspective of the whole platoon and the individual vessel, and contribute to improving energy benefits. Moreover, transportation energy costs and traffic efficiency are essential indicators for measuring waterborne transportation systems. We attempt to minimize transportation energy costs by coordinating platoon formation using a distributed framework of controllers. A large-scale coordinated vessel platooning program is proposed to minimize transportation energy costs and optimize traffic efficiency while guaranteeing safety. The control framework covers routing, energy consumption-dependent cooperative platooning decision and speed optimization based on graph search algorithm, cluster analysis, optimal control approach and model predictive control. Firstly, a local scheduling strategy combined with the leader vessel selection algorithm is adopted. Furthermore, we used cluster analysis to create a series of mergeable vessel platooning sets. Then, we used the mathematical planning method and a two-step hybrid optimal control approach to calculate the improvement and optimization of each vessel platoon's path and speed. Finally, the scalability of the scheduling strategy is elucidated. In a simulation of large scale inland waterborne network, savings surpassed 3.5% when six hundreds vessels participated in the system. These simulation results reveal that the scheduling strategy coordinating vessels into vessel platooning, which improves transportation efficiency as well as descends cost, comparing to a fixed origin route in the waterway network.

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This study contributes to addressing the challenge of quickly obtaining an effective and accurate nonparametric model for describing ship maneuvering motion in three degrees of freedom (3-DOF). To achieve this, an intelligent ship dynamics nonparametric modeling method named improved PER-DDPG is proposed. This method leverages the deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm (DDPG) and prioritized experience replay mechanism (PER) and analyzes the characteristics between the goal of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) and the modeling process of the nonparametric model. The PER mechanism is utilized to enhance the agent's understanding of the overall mechanism of ship motion by improving the utilization of samples. The meaning of target value is redefined due to transforming DRL aiming at maximizing cumulative rewards into maximizing the set of immediate rewards at each time step. To validate the performance of the proposed modeling method, we conduct simulation studies using a benchmark ship model i.e., a Mariner cargo ship dynamic model, and experimental studies using a real unmanned surface vehicle (USV). In the simulation test, we demonstrate the effectiveness and generalization of the proposed method through zigzag and turning circle tests. Furthermore, we verify the robustness and applicability of the proposed method by using datasets with uncertain environmental disturbances and datasets with different sampling frequencies. Additionally, the experimental tests conducted on the USV indicate the consistency of the proposed approach.@en

The prediction of ship location has become an increasingly popular research hotspot in the field of maritime transportation engineering, which benefits maritime safety supervision and security. Existing methods of ship location prediction based on motion characteristics have a large uncertainty and cannot guarantee trajectory prediction accuracy of the target ship. An improved method of location prediction using k-nearest neighbor (KNN) is proposed in this paper. An expanded circle area of the latest point of the target ship is first generated to find the reference points with similar movement characteristics in the constraints of distance and time intervals. Then, the top k-nearest neighbors are determined based on the degree of similarity. Relationships between the reference point of each neighbor and the latest points of the target ship are calculated. The predicted location of the target ship can then be determined by a weighted calculation of the locations of all neighbors at the predicted time and their relationships with the target ship. Experiments of ship location prediction in 10 min, 20 min, and 30 min were conducted. The correlation coefficient of the location prediction error for the three experiments was 0.992, 0.99, and 0.9875, respectively. The results show that ship location prediction with reference to multiple nearest neighbors with similar movements can provide better accuracy.@en

Identification of parameters involved in the linear response model with high precision is a highly cost-effective, as well as a challenging task, in developing a suitable model for the verification and validation (V+V) of some key techniques for autonomous vessels in the virtual testbed, e.g., guidance, navigation, and control (GNC). In order to deal with this identification problem, a novel identification framework is proposed in this paper by introducing the extended state observer (ESO), and the well-evaluated robust weighted least square support vector regression algorithm (RW-LSSVR). A second-order linear response model is investigated in this study due to its wide use in controller designs. Considering the highly possible situation that only limited states could be measured directly, the required but immeasurable states in identifying parameters contained in the response model are approximately estimated by the ESO. Theoretical analysis of the stability is given to show and improve the applicability of the ESO. Simulation studies based on linear response models with predefined parameter values of a cargo vessel and a patrol vessel maneuvering in an open water area are carried out, respectively. Results show that the proposed approach not only estimates immeasurable states with high accuracy but also ensures good performance on the parameter identification of the response model with very close values to the nominal ones. The proven identified approach is economic because it only requires limited kinds of low-cost sensors.@en

In this study, a method for dynamically establishing ship domain in inland waters is proposed to help make decisions about ship collision avoidance. The surrounding waters of the target ship are divided to grids and then calculating the grid densities of ships in each moment to deter-mine the shape and size of ship domain of different types of ships. At last, based on the spatiotem-poral statistical method, the characteristics of ship domains of different types of ship in different navigational environments were analyzed. The proposed method is applied to establish ship domains of different types of ship in Wuhan section of the Yangtze River in January, February, July, and August in 2014. The results show that the size of ship domain increases as the ship size increases in each month. The domain size is significantly influenced by the water level, and the ship domain size in dry seasons is larger than in the wet seasons of inland waters.@en

The essence of the path planning problems is multi-modality constraint. However, most of the current literature has not mentioned this issue. This paper introduces the research progress of path planning based on the multi-modality constraint. The path planning of multi-modality constraint research can be classified into three stages in terms of its basic ingredients (such as shape, kinematics and dynamics et al.): Route Planning, Trajectory Planning and Motion Planning. It then reviews the research methods and classical algorithms, especially those applied to the Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) in every stage. Finally, the paper points out some existing problems in every stage and suggestions for future research.

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The maneuvering characteristics of the unmanned surface vehicle itself are very important to motion planning due to the limited water scale area. If the size, motion state, and maneuvering characteristics of the unmanned surface vehicle are not considered, the shortest path obtained is actually not feasible in the restricted waters. In this article, the widely used A* algorithm is improved by accounting for the maneuvering characteristics of the unmanned surface vehicle, named as the Label-A* Algorithm, which is further employed to fix the problem related to the motion planning for the unmanned surface vehicle in restricted waters. The solution to the motion planning mainly contains three stages. First, the unmanned surface vehicle trajectory unit library is established based on its maneuvering characteristics; second, an improved label-A* Algorithm is constructed, and the unmanned surface vehicle motion planning method is proposed with the trajectory unit, which is suitable for the restricted waters; Finally, numerical simulations and filed tests are designed to verify the formulated model and proposed algorithm. The motion planning method can simultaneously meet the state constraints, maneuvering characteristics constraints, and water scale constraints of unmanned surface vehicle.@en

This paper investigates the motion-planning problem for an unmanned surface vehicle (USV), in which the goal is to find the shortest search time, the shortest path in navigational waters, all subject to collision avoidance and USV dynamics constraints. A new motion-planning method is proposed, based on topological position relationships (TPR), to achieve this solution. Firstly, the TPR of the obstacles and the USV are constructed, based on the spatial distribution of the obstacles. This gives an overall topological navigation map, which is different from the usual grid-based map. Secondly, a numerical model of unit decomposition is built to constrain the dynamics of the USV, so that the motion of the USV better fits the exact situation. Motion planning in this study is achieved by combining the topological navigation map and a numerical model of the USV. Finally, Numerical simulations and field tests verify the effectiveness of our formulated model and proposed algorithm.@en