Use of Uncertainty Zones for Vessel Operation in Inland Waterways

Kotzé, Marcus; Junaid, Ali Bin; Afzal, Muhammad Raheel; Peeters, Gerben; Slaets, Peter

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1357/1/012031

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…In the recently finished hull-to-hull (H2H) project, experiments were conducted with the explicit use of uncertainty and proximity vessel zones as a navigational aid for remote operators SINTEF (2020); Kotzé et al, (2019). In accordance to this project, this work adopts a similar three-level domain taxonomy, and subsequently focusses on the composability of the SDs, based on earlier defined relations.…”

Section: Ship Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Semantic World Models and Increased Situational Awareness for Highly Automated Inland Waterway Transport

et al. 2022

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Automated surface vessels must integrate many tasks and motions at the same time. Moreover, vessels as well as monitoring and control services need to react to physical disturbances, to dynamically allocate software resources available within a particular environment, and to communicate with various other actors in particular navigation and traffic situations. In this work, the responsibility for the situational awareness is given to a mediator that decides how: 1) to assess the impact of the actual physical environment on the quality and performance of the ongoing task executions; 2) to make sure these tasks satisfy the system requirements; and 3) to be robust against disturbances. This paper proposes a set of semantic world models within the context of inland waterway transport, and discusses policies and methodologies to compose, use, and connect these models. Model-conform entities and relations are composed dynamically, that is, corresponding to the opportunities and challenges offered by the actual situation. The semantic world models discussed in this work are divided into two main categories: 1) the semantic description of a vessel’s own properties and relationships, called the internal world model, or body model, and 2) the semantic description of its local environment, called the external world model, or map. A range of experiments illustrate the potential of using such models to decide the reactions of the application at runtime. Furthermore, three dynamic, context-dependent, ship domains are integrated in the map as two-dimensional geometric entities around a moving vessel to increase the situational awareness of automated vessels. Their geometric representations depend on the associated relations; for example, with: 1) the motion of the vessel, 2) the actual, desired, or hypothesised tasks, 3) perception sensor information, and 4) other geometries, e.g., features from the Inland Electronic Navigational Charts. The ability to unambiguously understand the environmental context, as well as the motion or position of surrounding entities, allows for resource-efficient and straightforward control decisions. The semantic world models facilitate knowledge sharing between actors, and significantly enhance explainability of the actors’ behaviour and control decisions.

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Section: Ship Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Semantic World Models and Increased Situational Awareness for Highly Automated Inland Waterway Transport

et al. 2022

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“…Figure 6a draws an exemplary uncertainty zone in red around a moving H2H object. This zone, together with the dynamics of the ship and its operation mode, could also be used for cascaded, dynamically-changing uncertainty zones, shown in orange and green [60,61] which could be coupled to triggering certain messages when interactions with other vessels in this area occur. Within this project, each H2H object has an H2H System which normally consists of: (i) position and movement sensors, (ii) 2D or 3D geometry models, (iii) an H2H engine to perform calculations, (iv) a data communication link, and (v) an H2H application or user interface.…”

Section: The Hull-to-hull Navigation Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Inland Shore Control Centre for Monitoring or Controlling Unmanned Inland Cargo Vessels

Peeters

Yayla

Catoor

et al. 2020

JMSE

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Augmenting the automation level of the inland waterway cargo transport sector, coupled with mechatronic innovation in this sector, could increase its competitiveness. This increase might potentially induce a sustainable paradigm shift in the road-dominated inland cargo transport sector. A key enabler of this envisaged shift may be an inland shore control centre (I-SCC) capable of remotely monitoring and controlling inland vessels. Accordingly, this study investigated the concept and design requirements to achieve an inland I-SCC that provides interaction services when supervising an unmanned surface vessel (USV). This I-SCC can help its operator to develop situational awareness and sensemaking. The conducted experiments offered insights into the performance of both the I-SCC system and its operator, and unlock research on the impact on ship sense and harmony when remotely controlling a USV. The Hull-To-Hull project extends the current I-SCC by providing enhanced motion control. This enhancement enables further performance insights and might improve the future monitoring of USVs. The successful I-SCC construction, the preliminary experiments, and the design-extension demonstrate that the I-SCC can serve as an experimental platform for both mechatronic innovation and human-automation integration research in the inland waterway sector, whilst additionally providing fruitful knowledge for adjacent research domains.

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“…As a part of the Horizon 2020 program, a consortium of European research institutes has begun work on the Hull-to-Hull (H2H) project that focuses on a positioning engine utilizing Galileo and EGNOS (H2H, 2020). This system will allow vessels to sail in close proximity to each other by displaying the 2D/3D geometry of the vessel's hull or the object on an electronic chart with an uncertainty zone representing the localization accuracy (Kotzé et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accuracy Benchmark of Galileo and EGNOS for Inland Waterways

Yayla

Baelen

Peeters

2020

Proceedings of the International Ship Control Systems Symposium (iSCSS)

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While Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) serve as a fundamental positioning technology for autonomous ships in Inland Waterways (IWW), in order to compensate for unexpected signal outages from constellations due to structures such as bridges and high buildings, it is not uncommon to use a sensor fusion setup with GNSS and Inertial Measurement Units (IMU)/Inertial Navigation Systems (INS). However, the accuracy of this fusion relies on the accuracy of the main localization technology itself. In Europe, Galileo and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) are two satellite navigation systems under civil control and they provide European users with independent access to a reliable positioning satellite signal, claiming better accuracy than what is offered by other accessible systems. Therefore, considering the potential utilization of these systems for autonomous navigation, in this paper, we discuss the results of a case study for benchmarking the accuracy of Galileo and EGNOS in IWW. We used a Coordinate Measurement Machine (CMM) and a sub-cm Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) service which is available in Flanders to quantify the benchmark reference. The results with and without sensor fusion show that Galileo has a better horizontal accuracy profile than standalone Global Positioning System (GPS), and its augmentation with EGNOS is likely to provide European IWW users more accurate positioning levels in the future.

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Use of Uncertainty Zones for Vessel Operation in Inland Waterways

Cited by 7 publications

References 8 publications

Dynamic Semantic World Models and Increased Situational Awareness for Highly Automated Inland Waterway Transport

Dynamic Semantic World Models and Increased Situational Awareness for Highly Automated Inland Waterway Transport

An Inland Shore Control Centre for Monitoring or Controlling Unmanned Inland Cargo Vessels

Accuracy Benchmark of Galileo and EGNOS for Inland Waterways

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