Principles for assessing the functional properties of systems for autonomous shipping

The article discusses the problem of assessing the operation quality of systems for autonomous shipping (SAS). These systems are one of the key components of autonomous shipping and provide traffic control for maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS). Not only the efficiency of the MASS operation, but also the safety of navigation depends on the quality of their work. Thus, it is obvious that such systems developed by various manufacturers must be certified by Administrations based on the results of their testing by accredited organizations. This requires tools approved by the Administration, in particular the Methodology for assessing the quality of SAS operation. The concept of assessing the quality of SAS operation has been herein presented based on the results of this SAS solution to a set of navigation problems that arise during the operation of a maritime surface vessel. During the testing process, many navigation solutions have been obtained from the SAS, for the analysis of which an evaluation grid has been built. To do this, the navigation solution has been decomposed into components; requirements for these components have been formulated; for each component and each requirement for it, an indicator, which is a measurable characteristic showing the degree of fulfillment of this requirement has been determined; for each indicator, a metric that determines the numerical assessment of the indicator implementation has been generated; a function for convolving indicators assessments to obtain an assessment of the navigation solution component implementation has been determined, as well as the function of convolving the navigation solution components assessments to obtain a numerical estimate of this navigation solution. As a result of navigation solutions assessments convolution, a comprehensive assessment of the SAS operation quality has been obtained. The proposed concept is implemented in a Methodology developed under the contract with the Russian Ministry of Transport. Brief information about this methodology has also been provided.

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