Despite the extent of works done on modelling port water collisions, not much research effort has been devoted to modelling collisions at port anchorages. This paper aims to fill this important gap in the literature by applying the Navigation Traffic Conflict Technique (NTCT) to measuring the collision potentials in anchorages and for examining the factors contributing to collisions. Building on the principles of the NTCT, a collision potential measurement model and a collision potential prediction model were developed. These models were illustrated by using vessel movement data of the anchorages in Singapore port waters. Results showed that the measured collision potentials are in close agreement with those perceived by harbour pilots. Higher collision potentials were found in anchorages attached to the shoreline and international fairways, but not at those attached to confined water. Higher operating speeds, larger numbers of isolated danger marks and day conditions were associated with reduction in the collision potentials.

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are used widely in the provision of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) services. Today, there is an increasing demand on GNSS to support applications at lane level. These applications required at lane level include lane control, collision avoidance and intelligent speed assistance. In lane control, detecting irregular driving behaviour within the lane is a basic requirement for safety related lane level applications. There are two major issues involved in lane level irregular driving identification: access to high accuracy positioning and vehicle dynamic parameters, and extraction of erratic driving behaviour from this and other related information. This paper proposes an integrated algorithm for lane level irregular driving identification. Access to high accuracy positioning is enabled by GNSS and its integration with an Inertial Navigation System (INS) using filtering with precise vehicle motion models and lane information. The identification of irregular driving behaviour is achieved by algorithms developed for different types of events based on the application of a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS). The results show that decimetre level accuracy can be achieved and that different types of lane level irregular driving behaviour can be identified.

A dual-axis rotational Inertial Navigation System (INS) has received wide attention in recent years because of high performance and low cost. However, some errors of inertial sensors such as stochastic errors are not averaged out automatically during navigation. Therefore a Twice Position-fix Reset (TPR) method is provided to enhance accuracy of a dual-axis rotational INS by compensating stochastic errors. According to characteristics of an azimuth error introduced by stochastic errors of an inertial sensor in the dual-axis rotational INS, both an azimuth error and a radial-position error are much better corrected by the TPR method based on an optimised error propagation equation. As a result, accuracy of the dual-axis rotational INS is prominently enhanced by the TPR method, as is verified by simulations and field tests.

For single point positioning solutions with multi-Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) constellations, the Position Dilution Of Precision (PDOP) and Time Dilution Of Precision TDOP) are quality measures to specify the additional multiplicative affect of measurement error on positioning accuracy and the timing accuracy, respectively. Considering the dimension of the unknown vector (including the three-dimensional positioning information of the receiver as well as the receiver clock biases related to these single constellations), this paper theoretically derives new formulae to describe the change of PDOP and TDOP. In addition, the detailed expressions of the variable quantity of the PDOP and TDOP are also obtained. The results show that if the dimension of the unknown vector is invariant in case of removing one or more satellites belonging to the existing tracked multi-GNSS constellations, both the PDOP and TDOP increase. On the other hand, if removing satellites reduces the dimension of the unknown vector, the PDOP neither increases nor decreases. However, the change of the TDOP is different, and it becomes smaller.

Gradual fault detection is always an important issue in integrated navigation systems, and the gradual fault is the most difficult fault to detect. To detect gradual faults in a timely and precise manner in integrated navigation systems, the statistical concepts of the normalised residual mean and the sum of absolute residuals are introduced according to the characteristics of gradual system failure in this paper. The applicability of the improved residual χ2 detection method is discussed. Then, the gradual fault detection program based on the improved residual χ2 detection method is designed with the criterion of normalised residual mean and the sum of absolute residual. The simulation results and vehicle tests show that: 1) The residual of the failed sub-system can be calculated accurately with the improved residual χ2 detection method, which has strong applicability in gradual fault detection; 2) The gradual fault can be detected in a short time by using the normalised residual mean and the sum of absolute residual.

The wave climate along the main transoceanic routes of the North Atlantic sub basin is determined using three different databases: two derived by numerical models in the HIPOCAS and ERA40 databases and one from Voluntary Observing Ships. For each route the distribution of the mean significant wave height along the path is computed as well as the specific scatter diagram. In addition an assessment of the relative wave heading probability is provided. The results highlight a bias in the visual observations especially in the summer and, more in general, for low sea states. The correction of this bias allows better understanding of rough weather avoidance by ships and to determine a storm avoidance correction.

This study provides a global, detailed, and complete energy-saving map of strong ocean currents from the absolute geostrophic velocities calculated from satellite altimetry data, with the focus on the strong Western Boundary Currents (WBCs) in the global ocean. Theoretically, the WBCs with speeds of 2–3 knots can reduce fuel consumption by 25–50% for vessels at a sailing speed of 6 knots. The fuel savings are greater for a lower sailing speed than for a higher sailing speed. For about 1·8 million motorised fishing vessels with a lower ship speed, strong currents can evidently save fuel, time and money. Since global fishing vessels generate roughly 130 million tonnes of CO2 per annum (FAO, 2012), effective utilisation of the energy-saving map could significantly reduce CO2 emissions from ship operations.

Based on the candidate architectures of the libration point satellite navigation system, a Mars navigation performance analysis is conducted in this paper to further verify the feasibility of the Universe Lighthouse. Firstly, a high-fidelity Mars exploration mission is developed as the reference scenario. Then, with the use of a novel adaptive unscented Kalman filter, navigation performance of the candidate Earth-Moon L1,2,4,5 four-satellite constellations is evaluated by Monte-Carlo simulations. The final results indicate that the libration point satellite navigation system is available for Mars navigation and the effects of different constellation configurations and measurement types are also compared and analysed.

Many navigation services, such as car navigation services, provide users with praxic navigational instructions (such as “turn left after 200 metres, then turn right after 150 metres”), however people usually associate directions with visual cues (e.g. “turn right at the square”) when giving navigational instructions in their daily conversations. Landmarks can play an equally important role in navigation and routing services. Landmarks are unique and easy-to-recognise and remember features; therefore, in order to remember when exploring an unfamiliar environment, they would be assets. In addition, Landmarks can be found both indoors and outdoors and their locations are usually fixed. Any positioning techniques which use landmarks as reference points can potentially provide seamless (indoor and outdoor) positioning solutions. For example, users can be localised with respect to landmarks if they can take a photograph of a registered landmark and use an application for image processing and feature extraction to identify the landmark and its location. Landmarks can also be used in pedestrian-specific path finding services. Landmarks can be considered as an important parameter in a path finding algorithm to calculate a route passing more landmarks (to make the user visit a more tourist-focussed area, pass along an easier-to-follow route, etc.). Landmarks can also be used as a part of the navigational instructions provided to users; a landmark-based navigation service makes users sure that they are on the correct route, as the user is reassured by seeing the landmark whose information/picture has just been provided as a part of navigational instruction. This paper shows how landmarks can help improve positioning and praxic navigational instructions in all these ways.

This paper presents a shallow water depth estimation methodology using S-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the HJ-1C satellite. It is based on the shoaling and refraction of long surface gravity waves as they propagate shoreward. A two-scale Bragg scattering model is used to describe the imaging process of long waves by SAR. By computing the Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) for the selected sub image, wavelength and direction of the long wave can be retrieved from the two-dimensional (2D) spectra with wave tracking technology. Shallow water depths are then obtained from the linear dispersion relation with the calculated angular wave frequency obtained from other sources or first guesses of initial water depths or wave periods. Applicability and effectiveness are tested in the near-shore area of the Fujian province, China. Comparison between the derived results and water depths from an Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC) indicates that HJ-1C SAR is capable of higher resolution underwater topography detection, and the methodology can be used for shallow water depth estimation with good accuracy. The average absolute error and average relative error of the estimated results is 0·86 m and 11·05%, respectively.

The paper introduces a new approach to displaying information on targets. The proposed display visualises three types of information: targets' motion parameters (typical for target tracking), combinations of own course and speed which collide with those targets (typical for Collision Threat Parameters Area display by Lenart (1983)) and combinations of own course and speed which are not compliant with COLREGS in this case (based on ships' motion parameters and visibility conditions). A superposition of the last two types of data enables a navigator to quickly choose a collision avoidance manoeuvre which is both sufficient and COLREGS-compliant. Additionally, the displayed data may be filtered based on the remaining Time To Collision (TTC) so that navigators can concentrate on direct threats. The paper includes a description of the proposed visualisation technique as well as examples of visualised data for some encounter situations.

The objective of this paper is to investigate an online method to generate an optimal ascent trajectory for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles. A direct method called the Pseudo-spectral method shows promise for real-time optimal guidance. A significant barrier to this optimisation-based control strategy is computational delay, especially when the solution time of the non-linear programming problem exceeds the sampling time. Therefore, an online guidance algorithm for an air-breathing hypersonic vehicles with process constraints and terminal states constraints is proposed based on the Pseudo-spectral method and sensitivity analysis in this paper, which can reduce online computational costs and improve performance significantly. The proposed ascent optimal guidance method can successively generate online open-loop suboptimal controls without the design procedure of an inner-loop feedback controller. Considering model parameters' uncertainties and external disturbance, a sampling theorem is proposed that indicates the effect of the Lipschitz constant of the dynamics on sampling frequency. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method offers improved performance and has promising ability to generate an optimal ascent trajectory for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles.

This paper presents the results of research on the fusion of tracking radar and an Automatic Identification System (AIS) in an Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS). First, the concept of these systems according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is described, then a set of theoretical information on radar tracking and the fusion method itself is given and finally numerical results with real data are presented. Two methods of fusion, together with their parameters, are examined. A proposal for calculating the covariance matrix for radar and AIS data is also given, and the paper ends with conclusions.

Underwater terrain matching navigation technology is an important research area for the underwater navigation of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). Terrain matching navigation can realise long-term, subtle, all-weather, and high-precision underwater AUV navigation. In this paper, the research status of the application of AUV underwater terrain matching navigation is reviewed, the system composition, theory and terrain matching methods of underwater terrain matching navigation are summarised and the advantages of a multi-beam bathymetric system in underwater terrain matching navigation are discussed. The current research thoughts are summarised, the key issues are pointed out, and possible future development trends are discussed.

The autonomous navigation of navigation and positioning systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) was motivated to improve accuracy and survivability of the navigation function for 180 days without ground contact. These improvements are accomplished by establishing inter-satellite links in the constellation for pseudo-range observations and communications between satellites. But observability issues arise for both ephemeris and clock since the pseudo-range describes only the relative distance between satellites. A differential measurement method is proposed to measure the rotation of the constellation as a whole for the first time. The feasibility of the proposed method is verified by simulations.

In this paper, the definition of seaport fairway capacity, considering port service level, is given by referring to both road and inland waterway capacity combined with the features of coastal fairways. In view of the navigation environment and ships' behaviour, the safety distance of ships entering and leaving a seaport is chosen as an overall index to evaluate the navigational safety level of a fairway. Based on the ship-following theory, an Arena-based seaport operating system simulation model is constructed to analyse the impact of safety level on seaport fairway capacity. For different navigational safety levels (i.e., minimum, general and adequate), seaport fairway capacity corresponding to different service levels and navigation durations is obtained. The results show that fairway capacity varies with safety level for a given port service level, and the lower the safety level is, the higher the fairway capacity is. Finally, a recommended navigational safety level and its associated fairway capacity are given to provide a theoretical foundation for fairway design and management.