Estimation of Ship's Course for Sailing on Route by Navigation Simulation in Coastal Water

Abstract

Ship weather routing system for transoceanic vessels has been studied for many years to achieve an economic and safe navigation. However, little is known about that for coastal sailing vessels. The purpose of this research is to develop a weather routing system for small vessels. We call it numerical navigation system. This paper mainly discusses one of its important functions: the ability for a vessel to sailing on the planned route as precisely as possible. First, the outline of the numerical navigation system is introduced, and then a navigation simulation based on MMG mathematical model is revealed. Finally, on-board experiments are conducted and compared with the navigation simulation. The results confirm that the estimation accuracy of ship's course for the weather routing system is satisfactory.