An Intelligent Collision Avoidance Strategy for Inland Waterways

With the flourishing development of inland waterway transportation, the restricted environmental characteristics and dense ship traffic significantly increase the difficulty of ship collision avoidance maneuvers. This not only limits the application of intelligent navigation technology in inland waterways but also imposes higher demands on the safety of ship navigation. Therefore, it is necessary to construct an appropriate collision avoidance strategy to guide safe and intelligent navigation of ships. Based on the characteristics of inland waterways, a hierarchical strategy is proposed, which first determines the direction of course adjustment and then solves for the adjustment magnitude. By integrating the design of a directional intent model that considers the course danger sector and ship complexity, as well as a multi-objective decision-making model that accounts for the potential situational impact costs and maneuvering time constraints, the optimal collision avoidance direction and appropriate adjustment magnitude are obtained. The research results indicate that this strategy performs well in various scenarios, especially in dense multi-ship environments, with minimal adjustment fluctuations and a smooth trajectory change trend, while ensuring a minimum inter-ship distance of at least 0.55 n miles. It is worth mentioning that the model can potentially be further developed to enhance the safety and decision-making capabilities of intelligent ships navigating inland waterways.