AN EMPIRICAL MODEL OF SHIP DOMAIN FOR NAVIGATION IN RESTRICTED WATERS

Abstract

As a principal criterion for navigational safety, the concept of ship domain plays an important role in marine traffic engineering. Despite several decades of research, there are still issues that are not well understood. The objective of this research is to develop an empirically-established stochastic model of ship domain that accounts for dynamic interaction between vessels and can be effectively applied to path planning in navigation within restricted waters. A new approach of modeling ship domain separately around own ship and target ship is proposed. The model is calibrated using seven hours of ship movements within the Singapore Port under both day and night conditions. The calibrated stochastic model is well capable of interpreting navigational behavior of various ship encounters and can be used to model optimal navigational paths for multi-ship movements in a realistic situation.