Autonomy for Ferries and Harbour Buses: a Collision Avoidance Perspective

TL;DR

This paper discusses collision avoidance strategies for maritime autonomous surface ships, focusing on the Greenhopper harbour bus, and presents a detailed autonomy stack and simulation demonstrating safe operation.

Contribution

It introduces the Short Horizon Planner (SHP) for collision avoidance and details the autonomy stack for autonomous ferries and harbour buses.

Findings

Successful simulation of collision avoidance in Greenhopper system

Identification of operational challenges with COLREGs adherence

Development of a comprehensive autonomy stack for maritime vessels

Abstract

This paper provides a collision avoidance perspective to maritime autonomy, in the shift towards Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS). In particular, the paper presents the developments related to the Greenhopper, Denmark's first autonomous harbour bus. The collision and grounding avoidance scheme, called the Short Horizon Planner (SHP), is described and discussed in detail. Furthermore, the required autonomy stack for facilitating safe and rule-compliant collision avoidance is presented. The inherent difficulties related to adhering to the COLREGs are outlined, highlighting some of the operational constraints and challenges within the space of autonomous ferries and harbour buses. Finally, collision and grounding avoidance is demonstrated using a simulation of the whole Greenhopper autonomy stack.