SWANS

This project will develop and implement new solutions enabling the improved utilisation of shared waterspace by traditionally manned, partially automated and fully autonomous surface vessels. Our focus is the interaction in potentially hazardous situations between mariners in conventional manned craft as they perceive and respond to ASVs operating both over the horizon (beyond line of sight) and in proximity to other vessels using newly fused visual and satellite data. There is a pressing need to guide and train pilots and other mariners and marine insurers in how to react to this evolving ASV technology as it enters a rapidly growing marketplace. Our main objectives are fourfold; to exploit satellite sensing technology to enable a higher fidelity world model to be provided to vessel operators and /or supervisors; to simulate new scenarios for ASV operations; to combine, for the first time, ASV control simulators and ship hydrodynamic simulators into a single suite capable of visualising different datasets in 3-D; and to evaluate new multi-vessel conflict scenarios in the real-world.