Towards short-term collision detection on inland waterways based on positioning, navigation and timing data

Abstract

The intensive use of river corridors for the transportation of goods and passengers as well as the corresponding growth in inland water tra�c has proven to be a major concern for waterborne navigation as the natural result of an increasing demand on e�ciency and positional accuracy, and has driven to an attempt towards the improvement of the computation and prediction of the vessel's position. Of particular interest for the time and resource e�ciency, specically for the safety of inland water navigation is the risk of collision detection in critical locations within the path of a ship, such as bridges and locks, as well as those areas with high tra�c conuence. These sections provide adverse scenarios where the prediction of the position of the vessel for the detection of short-term close encounters becomes a crucial practical problem for the sailing, and requires the continuous development of positioning and numerical methods capable to overcome such challenges. Thus, this works describes the implementation of the Gauss-Markov Mobility Model for the prediction of the future position of the own and surrounding vessels and the Separating Axes Theorem for the computation of collision between arbitrary polyhedra as an essential part of a manoeuvre guidance system for the short-term collision detection based on the supplying of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) data in real-time with inland water tra�c purposes. Evaluated on a set of real data measured on the river Moselle close to the lock of Koblenz (Germany), the findings for the�first numerical results in the aforesaid troubling scenarios are discussed.