Design and Implementation of Autonomous Navigation System for Mobile Harbors

This paper describes an implementation of an autonomous navigation system for a USV-type Mobile Harbor (MH) prototype and for multiple MHs. The MH is a novel maritime container transport solution that can go out to a ship to load/unload containers at sea and take them to their destination ports. We demonstrate the feasibility of the navigation system for a MH by performing experiments using a prototype in a basin. A devised multiple navigation system enables multiple MHs navigate safely without colliding with each other. In the initial stage of path planning, 3D optimal path planning algorithm in Configuration-Time space is performed. When the MHs navigate using those generated paths, the decentralized and delayed path planning method is performed in real-time by predicting the collision expected regions. To demonstrate the feasibility of this algorithm, simulations were performed.