Decision-making method for wide-water navigation in inland rivers under traffic separation system

To solve the problem of ship navigation decision-making in wide inland waterways where the traffic separation system was implemented，the deep-water channel from the mouth of the Liuhe River to the Jiangyin Bridge was taken as an example．A sequential rolling navigation decision-making framework was constructed，which combined digital traffic environment models，graded vessel bell models，and heading and speed control methods．The collision avoidance mechanism based on the behavioral characteristics of the ships in the study waters was explored，the navigation rules were integrated into the quantitative analysis，and the navigation decision-making method that could dynamically adapt to the residual error of the system and the random motion of the target ship was proposed．Under the predefined scenarios，the ship can safely navigate at 0，1 595，1 766，3 188，and 4 194 s by altering course 5° to the port side，decelerating，altering course 9° to the port side，decelerating，and altering course 6° to the port side．The ship can track the prescribed route at 286，2 005，3 685，and 4 393 s．Experiments show that the proposed method could effectively control ship avoidance and ensure timely route tracking in wide inland waterways with multi-ship constraints within the traffic separation system. © 2024 Huazhong University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved.