Risk-based supervisory control for autonomous ship navigation

Abstract This paper proposes a novel method to transform the results of qualitative risk analysis into numeric optimal control problem for autonomous ship navigation. Today, making high-level decisions replacing crew onboard is considered difficult, in some part due complexity managing operational risks involved. Although human supervisors, e.g., located remote operating centers are still needed safety and liability reasons, there growing demand complex be made by system itself, both during normal operations emergencies. suggests general principles how from systems-theoretic process (STPA) can transformed quantitative computationally tractable optimization problem, solved MPC-based decision-making algorithm The proposed demonstrated evaluated simulating an navigating coastal environment. It concluded that may serve as reasonable valuable bridge between realms numerical risk-aware decision-making.