A Multi-Space Framework for Safer Ship Navigation

Keywords: multi-space,ship navigation,safety
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

There exist many factors that could affect the safety of ship navigation such as the environment, weather, nearby ships, and how a skipper operates its ship. This presentation focuses on how to enhance a ship skipper’s capability of avoiding potential collisions with surrounding features (e.g., shoal, reef, pier, etc.) and ships based on multiple perspectives of spatial concepts. One critical requirement of a good skipper is to always position its ship at the right location, at an appropriate speed, and in a correct direction. This requirement goes beyond positioning a ship at the right location in absolute space. It also requires a skipper’s awareness of relative locations with respect to the surrounding environment and other ships, relationships with other entities (e.g., sailing schedule, communications with port authorities and clients), and spatial cognition and mental processing of dynamic situations. A multi-space framework, which consists of absolute space, relative space, relational space, and mental space, is presented to illustrate how to enhance a skipper’s capability of safe ship navigation by considering these four concepts of space together.