Simplifying interactions between autonomous and conventional ships with e-Navigation

Abstract

Ships in autonomous mode will for a long time interact with conventional ships with human decision-makers on the bridge. For safety it will be necessary to simplify this interaction and this paper discusses three areas which will be crucial in this respect: the collision regulations, e-navigation and traffic separation schemes. To be able to code collision avoidance algorithms COLREGS must be quantified. Soft enumerations like “good seamanship” needs to be made machine-readable. At the same time, such attempts threaten to make them less human-readable. On the positive side e-Navigation services like route exchange promises to make ship intentions more transparent and paired with an extended network of Traffic Separation Schemes future interaction between manned ships and ships in autonomous mode can be facilitated.