Imminent ships collision risk assessment based on velocity obstacle

Abstract

Ships collision assessment and conflict resolution are two main research problems in the maritime domain. In this paper, a methodology of collision risk assessment is introduced which is based on Velocity Obstacle (VO). In this paper, VO is employed to distinguish the dangerous velocities and judge the collision probability. The ship maneuverability is also considered to find the reachable velocities (RV) in a given time window. The percentage of dangerous velocities in all RV is defined as collision risk. By this approach, the proposed assessment model not only can identify the collision dangers, but also measure the probability of surviving in the encounter situation, regarding to its maneuverability. Several simulated encounter situations are presented to demonstrate this model.