Collision Avoidance Algorithm Based on COLREGs for Unmanned Surface Vehicle

Abstract

Recently, unmanned surface vehicles (USV) are being actively developed. For USVs to be put to practical use, it is necessary to secure safety by preventing collisions with general ships. To this end, USVs must avoid opposing vessels based on international regulations for preventing collisions at sea (COLREGs, 1972). This paper proposes an algorithm for USVs to avoid collisions with opposing vessels based on COLREG rules. The proposed algorithm predicts dangerous situations based on distance to closest point of approach (DCPA) and time to closest point of approach (TCPA). It allows USVs to avoid opponent ships based on the dynamic window approach (DWA). The DWA has been improved to comply with COLREGs, and we implemented a simulation and compared the standard DWA with the COLREG-compliant DWA (CCDWA) proposed in this paper. The results confirm that the CCDWA complies with COLREGs.

Keywords

• unmanned surface vehicle
• autonomous navigation
• dynamic window approach
• COLREGs