Toward Using Fuzzy Grey Cognitive Maps in Manned and Autonomous Collision Avoidance at Sea

With Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) slowly but steadily nearing full-scale implementation, the question of their safety persists. Regardless of being a disruptive technology, they will likely be subject to the same factors shaping their safety performance as manned ships nowadays are. Yet, the impact of these factors may be different in each case. The current study presents an application of Fuzzy Grey Cognitive Maps (FGCMs) to the comparative evaluation of factors affecting collision avoidance at sea. To this end, subject matter experts have been elicited, and the data obtained from them have been analyzed, concerning how changes in the intensity of given factors would affect safety performance. The obtained results showed that with the use of FGCM, it was possible to model the relative impact of selected factors both on a specific phase of the maritime collision avoidance process as well as on its entirety. The conducted analysis shows noticeable variability of the influence of some factors, depending on the timing of their activation during the process (time dependence), and using FGCM, it was possible to assess its quantification. Furthermore, the results indicate that greater differences can be found between the factors’ impact on phases of an encounter than between manned and autonomous ships. The outcome of this study may be found interesting for all parties involved in maritime safety modeling as well as working on the forthcoming introduction of autonomous ships.