Protocol-Based COLREGS Collision Avoidance Navigation Between Unmanned Marine Surface Craft
Abstract
This paper is concerned with the in-field autonomous operation of unmanned marine vehicles in accordance with convention for safe and proper collision avoidance as prescribed by the Coast Guard Collision Regulations (COLREGS). These rules are written to train and guide safe human operation of marine vehicles and are heavily dependent on human commonsense in determining rule applicability as well as rule execution, especially when multiple rules apply simultaneously. To capture the flexibility exploited by humans, this work applies a novel method of multi-objective optimization, interval programming, in a behavior based control framework for representing the navigation rules, as well as task behaviors, in a way that achieves simultaneous optimal satisfaction. We present experimental validation of this approach using multiple autonomous surface craft. This work represents the first infield demonstration of multi-objective optimization applied to autonomous COLREGS-based marine vehicle navigation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 22, 2006
- Accession Number
- AD1137111
Entities
People
- John J. Leonard
- Joseph A. Curcio
- Michael R. Benjamin
- Paul A. Newman
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology