Fuzzy risk evaluation and collision avoidance control of unmanned surface vessels

In this investigation, a smart collision avoidance control design, which integrates a collision avoidance navigation and a nonlinear optimal control method, is developed for unmanned surface vessels (USVs) under randomly incoming ships and fixed obstacle encounter situations. For achieving collision avoidance navigation, a fuzzy collision risk indicator and a fuzzy collision avoidance acting timing indicator are developed. These two risk indicators can offer effective pre-alarms for making the controlled USVs to perform dodge actions in time when obstacles appear. As to nonlinear optimal control law, it provides a precise trajectory tracking ability for the controlled USVs to follow a collision avoidance trajectory, which is generated via a smart collision avoidance trajectory generator. Finally, a power allocation method is used to transform the desired control law into available actuator outputs to guide the USVs to follow a desired collision avoidance trajectory. From simulation results, the proposed collision avoidance strategy reveals a promising collision avoidance performance and an accurate trajectory tracking ability with respect to fixed objects and randomly moving ships under the effect of environmental ocean disturbances.