Abstract:

A great number of urgent issues concerning navigation require intensive live tests. They are often impossible financially or for the safety of a marine vessel crew. The development of virtual polygons, the possible use of them for modeling the movement of surface crafts which are handled and unsteered, including situations where live (real) testing is impossible, is considered to be one possible solution to this problem. Thus, it is possible to simulate situations on virtual polygons if one cannot avoid cases of ship collision or that one of a sea vessel with an uncontrolled guide ship. So the virtual polygon is able to predict the outcome of several final options and estimate the best / worst of them. It allows using the virtual polygon for programming decision making systems for boatmasters (skippers). This paper is dedicated to a virtual polygon for modeling both marine vessels and various situations come about through a marine vessel movement, which is constantly influenced by various wind and wave disturbances. A structurally designed virtual polygon contains such programming elements as a subsystem of graphic images. It is used for visualizing sea stationary or dynamic crafts and wind and wave disturbances. It also includes a signal part, a simulation modeling subsystem, an intelligent subsystem with neural network and neural-fuzzy models to make decisions in different circumstances, a graphical user interface configuration subsystem. The capability of the virtual polygon is constantly improving. In particular, the developers design new items and situations to include them in the subsystem of graphic images and the subsystem of simulation modeling, and form a set of situational models of intelligent systems.