Background

High speed, short decision time, un-integrated and complex navigational equipment on the bridge lead to high cognitive workload for the navigator and increases the risk of accidents at sea. An optional presentation mode instead of the traditional exocentric nautical chart in an egocentric bridge view offers relieves the navigators from cognitive demanding mental rotations. Other suggestions include computing present draught, water level etc. and visualizing accessible water of an individual ship in the current water level using dynamic NoGo Area polygons. A traffic separated road network structure of seaways and individual track-lines add additional aid to course keeping and wayfinding (Porathe, 2006).

A resent decision by the Swedish government to appoint a committee to investigate the possibility of shore-based or remote pilotage (Swedish Government, 2006) set focus on research needs of aids to the bridge crew of ships entering unknown harbours. Using the features suggested above individual track-lines could be sent to arriving ships using web or AIS. The track-lines would lead the ship from the sea all the way to the particular berth assigned for her, designating speed and safe rendezvous points with other ships along the way. The track-lines would act as a graphical ships traffic control system.

Methods

Field studies, laboratory experiments and prototyping methods have been used to develop the suggested 3-D Nautical Chart system. Suggested methods for further development of the remote pilotage system would also include task analyses, prototyping and field studies.

Results

The laboratory experiment showed significantly better results using the egocentric 3-D chart compared to traditional paper charts, and head-up and north-up electronic charts (Porathe, 2006).

Discussion/Conclusions

Remote pilotage would relieve the pilots of the many times dangerous boarding and disembarking of ships in heavy weather. However care must also be taken to ensure the safety of crews entering into unknown waters and the possibility of environmental damage in case of grounding. Therefore the navigation crew of an arriving ship must be provided with an unambiguous presentation, based on human factors knowledge, of the courses designated by the remote pilot. Suggested research would show if the 3-D chart could provide such a system.

References

Porathe, T. (2006). 3-D Nautical Charts and Safe Navigation. Mälardalen Univerity Dissertations No. 27: Västerås.