COLREG and Autonomous Collision Avoidance Development: An analytical review

Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) face regulatory challenges, evident by that the current ship anti-collision regulations (e.g. COLREG) are not appliable for autonomous navigation systems. While academic research has focused on developing autonomous collision avoidance (CA), these studies have produced inconsistent outcomes compared to conventional navigation practices. This study aims to identify trends and weaknesses in recent academic studies on CA by reviewing and analysing the contents of selected papers. The conventional collision avoidance process (CCAP), which benchmarks human driven modern ship’s capacity for CA compliance with COLREG and industry requirements, was used to disintegrate into 53 fragmented functions under eight main functions. 32 papers were selected by filtering based on keywords, period of publication, language, and relevance. The autonomy development content was then grouped under appropriate CCAP codes. Statistical and graphical interpretations were generated using the collected literature content data and evaluated statistics of the existing digital contribution of CCAP. The study reveals significant trends, inconsistency, and weaknesses of CA regulations to guide future scholarly studies toward comprehensive CA solutions.