Review of Ship Positioning and Navigation Coordinate Systems

The coordinate systems for ship positioning and navigation are crucial as they enable ships to determine optimal routes, ensure navigational safety, and accurately locate their positions to avoid collisions. Additionally, these systems facilitate analyzing the impact of oceanic environmental factors on ship navigation, improving operational efficiency, and supporting marine-related operations. This paper reviews commonly used coordinate systems in ship positioning and navigation, including geodetic coordinate systems, body-fixed coordinate systems, transverse geodetic coordinate systems, grid coordinate systems, and pseudo-Earth coordinate systems. Their definitions, mutual conversion relationships, algorithms, and applications in ship navigation are analyzed, highlighting their respective advantages and disadvantages. In practical applications, the selection of appropriate coordinate systems and schemes must consider geophysical factors and the accuracy of navigation equipment. Future research on ship positioning and navigation coordinate systems will focus on the development of novel high-precision coordinate systems, efficient conversion algorithms, data fusion technologies, error source analysis and modeling, as well as the establishment of international standards and collaborations.