REVIEW OF METHODS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR SHIP COLLISION AVOIDANCE

The navigation safety component is the process of maintaining safe navigable waterways to provide for the movement of commercial and recreational vessels, and of promoting and regulating safe boating and shipping practices to minimize water accidents. Marine accidents continue to result in heavy loss of life and serious damage to the environment To realize safe navigation, ship collision avoidance is one of the most difficult subjects. It requires seeing the complete situation such as meteorological and environment conditions, waterways traffic density, port zone and endogenous factors (ship type, onboard technologies, etc). In navigation traffic areas and within coastal zones, correct selection of a ship’ s speed, when accompanied by the necessary trajectory changes, is a crucial element of safe navigation. Also, it is important to realize connection with information-processing center in ports and ensure information flow. Useful information, especially that related to target ships, can be used to prevent accidents and to the future position and degree of future collision threat in sufficient time. In those days, when ship navigation was performed manually, the seaman was able to perform ship navigation satisfactorily. In process of making judgment and controlling the ship, human decisions are depended on long experience and theoretical knowledge. But, the captain or officer who hasn't this ability can lead to accidents and ship collision. Now, applications of modern maritime and information technologies and techniques can reduce accidents drastically. In this work we give the theoretical background these techniques and technologies and previous research. They can be grouped in simulators, mathematical models and formal methods such as Petri nets or techniques from AI (genetic algorithms, fuzzy logic, etc). In order to meet the challenge of modern maritime development, the responsibility of education is to produce a great many talents ideas and work abilities.