Integration of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships into Coastal Waters Supply Chains: A Systematic Literature Review of Safety and Autonomy Challenges

This study presents a systematic literature review of 307 peer-reviewed articles on collision avoidance approaches regarding the integration of maritime autonomous surface ships (MASSs) in coastal waters supply chains. The bibliographic data were retrieved from the ISI Web of Science Database and analyzed using Bibliometrix (version 4.3.3) in R and VOSviewer (version 1.6.20) to map the intellectual, thematic, and network structure of the research area. Three main research clusters were revealed through bibliographic coupling analysis: (1) autonomous collision risk management; (2) methodological approaches to maritime autonomy; and (3) adaptive maritime safety modeling. Content analysis of the identified research clusters enabled the development of a 68-item hierarchical task analysis (HTA) framework for MASS collision avoidance across three operational scenarios: (1) ship-to-object, (2) ship-to-ship, and (3) multi-ship. The results provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of research, identify methodological and safety interdependencies in autonomous navigation, and offer an organized and structured perspective to support the safer and more efficient integration of MASSs into coastal waters supply chains.