Jinfen Zhang

A novel approach for assistance with anti-collision decision making based on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea

Marine intelligent anti-collision regulations have been a means of dealing with a particularly dangerous problem for many years. As the foundation for making anti-collision decisions, the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea formulated by the International Maritime Organization should always be considered. Based on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, the minimum distance required for anti-collision by only the give-way ship (under normal situations) and by both the give-way ship and the stand-on ship steering simultaneously (under critical situations) under all possible encounter situations are studied respectively. Rather than regarding ships as a point, a restricted area where no evasive action of other ships is allowed is introduced. Furthermore, the ship’s manoeuvrability is taken into account. The proposed model is also assessed by the traditional parameters used in anti-collision such as the closest point of approach, the distance to the closest point of approach and the time to the closest point of approach. The study shows that the results obtained in this paper are important and complement the above-mentioned regulations so that navigators can make wise decisions.

Challenges and Developments in Navigational Risk Assessment With Large Uncertainty

Concerns have been raised to navigational safety worldwide because of the increasing throughput and the passing ships during the past decades while maritime accidents such as collisions, groundings, overturns, oil-spills and fires have occurred, causing serious consequences. Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) has been acknowledged to be a framework widely used in maritime risk assessment. Under this framework, this paper discusses certain existing challenges when an effective safety assessment is carried out under a variety of uncertainties. Some theories and methodologies are proposed to overcome the present challenges, e.g., Fault/Event Tree Analysis (FTA/ETA), Evidential Reasoning (ER), Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) and Belief Rule Base (BRB). Subsequently, three typical case studies that have been carried out in the Yangtze River are introduced to illustrate the general application of those approaches. These examples aim to demonstrate how advanced methodologies can facilitate navigational risk assessment under high uncertainties.Copyright

Ship Trajectory Control Optimization in Anti-collision Maneuvering

A lot of attention is being paid to ship’s intelligent anti-collision by researchers. Several solutions have been introduced to find an optimum trajectory for ships, such as Game Theory, Genetic or Evolutionary Algorithms and so on. However, ship’s maneuverability should be taken into consideration before their real applications. This paper focuses on ship’s trajectory control problem in anti-collision maneuvering. At first, a simple linear ship maneuverability model is introduced to simulate its movement under different speed and rudder angle. After that, the ship’s trajectory control is studied by considering the duration of rudder, operation distance to turning points, and maximum angular velocity. The details for algorithm design are also introduced. By giving some restrictions according to the requirements from COLREGs, the intervals for rudder angle in different circumstances can be determined by the curves. The results can give very meaningful guidance for seafarers when making decisions.

Emergency Management of Maritime Accidents in the Yangtze River: Problems, Practice and Prospects

Maritime accidents have received considerable attentions due to the enormous property damage, casualties and serious environmental pollution. This paper first makes statistical analysis of the different types of maritime accidents in the period of 2012 to 2014 in the Yangtze River. Second, the problems of emergency management of maritime accidents are also proposed from the analysis of the major accident “Eastern Star”.. Afterwards, four practice cases, including decision support for maritime accidents, emergency resource allocation, emergency simulation system and effectiveness of emergency management, are introduced to present the insights gained from these practices. Last, in order to address these problems, this paper proposes that an artificial societies, Computational experiments, and Parallel execution (ACP) approach should be introduced to establish an improved management system for maritime accidents in the future, and an ACP based maritime accident emergency management framework is proposed. http://www.transnav.eu the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation Volume 11

Study on the Coordination between Berths and Channels in Tianjin Port

With the steady-state growth of throughput in Tianjin port, it is of great importance to search for the potential bottleneck that restricts its further development. The coordination development of berths and channel plays a vital role in the function exertion for every port. At first the statistical regularity of coming vessel, berthing time and so on are studied. Then the whole process for the vessels from entering the anchorage ground to leaving the port is realized by discrete-time simulation model, which is based on the proposed distributions. The capacity of the main channel in Tianjin port is studied under two scheduling strategies: First Come First Served (FCFS) and Minimum Berth-time First Served (MBFS). At last, some proposals are given to coordinate the development of berths and channel in Tianjin port. Simulation results show that MBFS is better than FCFS strategy and enhancing vessel grade is an effective way to promote the throughput of Tianjin port.

Use of Encounter Model for Collision Risk Assessment of Yangtze River

As Chinas largest and the worlds busiest inland river, the sustainable development and navigational safety of Yangtze River are widely concerned by various parties. However, with the national development of the Middle and Western parts of China, the throughput as well as the passing ships of Yangtze River has been increasing rapidly during the past few decades. Collisions, groundings, overturns, oil-spills, fires, and other accidents have occurred repeatedly and caused serious consequences. In view of this, this paper examines collision risk assessment on the Yangtze River. The research presented a collision risk assessment approach which is based on a novel ship encounter model. This model considers the historical and the current traffic conditions as well as the environmental features, which could be used for evaluation and prediction of collision risk. Finally, the collision risk of the main route of Yangtze River was evaluated as an example.