Characteristics of Actions Taken by Navigators in Emergency Collision Avoidance

Abstract

Globally, advancements toward the development of autonomous ships are accelerating. However, there has been inadequate focus on the fallback measures—specifically, how to safely revert control to human operators when the system fails to respond adequately. It is essential to specify the skills that marine officers on future autonomous ships will need, such as making rapid collision avoidance decisions. Prior research shown that indicating differences in preparatory actions based on experience even in standard navigation. It is plausible that similar variances of pre-evasion actions exist in emergencies, and understanding these could be pivotal in determining the skills required for seafarers on future autonomous ships. Therefore, this study aims to clarify the characteristics of actions taken by navigators before initiating emergency evasion maneuvers.

This study highlights distinct differences in the ability to gather and utilize information based on the level of experience among navigators. Despite their diligent efforts to thoroughly observe their surroundings, inexperienced students were unable to gather sufficient information to avoid collisions. In contrast, among officers with some experience, those in the non-collision group spent relatively more time per instance observing the radar and were considered successful in acquiring the necessary data through radar observation. Captains had the highest proportion of radar observation behavior among all groups. This suggests that captains may demonstrated proficiency in employing appropriate information-gathering methods that are customized to the demands of the situation.