Study of a collision-avoidance system for ships

Recently, the avoidance of ship collisions is becoming essential from the viewpoint of maneuvering ships safely in crowded or crossing areas. The information needed for safe navigation is currently obtained by combining radar data with information obtained visually. However, misjudgments accompanying visual observations comprise a major cause of ship collisions. For this reason, the authors have been pursuing a study of ship collision-avoidance systems, including the use of radar and infrared imaging. In this study, they have obtained a method for measuring the course of a target vessel, and for the evaluation of the risk of a collision by extracting images of a target ship from an infrared image. As a result of this study, this paper demonstrates and asserts that the effective and simultaneous use of radar and such images can improve performance in terms of collision avoidance. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.