MAS and AIS Based Vessel Automatic Collision Avoidance System

The automatic collision avoidance for vessels on sea is an important and difficult problem for modern navigation. We propose a new Vessel Automatic Collision Avoidance System (VACAS) based on Multi-agent System (MAS) and Automatic Identification System (AIS). Each ship can be regarded as an agent, and multiple ships which have potential collision danger compose a MAS. The vessels move toward their goals step by step. Before each step, they should reserve the next sea areas. By exploring the functions of AIS, we use Self Organizing Time Division Multiple Access (SOTDMA) to coordinate vessels automatically. The simulation result demonstrates that our system can automatically avoid collision for multiple vessels successfully. And our method is also suitable for other vehicle's automatic collision avoidance.