SBIR Phase I: Collision Regulations (COLREG) Aware Autonomy for Safe Interactions of Crewed and Uncrewed Vessels

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是提高整个1.3万亿美元蓝色经济的生产力和运营安全性。海上作业通常会给人的生命和财产带来重大风险，因此需要承担非常高的运营成本。自主海洋交通工具（属于机器人技术领域）由于具有显著降低成本和风险的潜力，正在被科学、商业和国防组织迅速采用。拟议项目的成功将推动商用自动驾驶汽车遵守规范海上船舶相互作用的国际法。赋予自主海洋航行器安全、可预测地与船员船只互动的能力，将加速这些工具的采用及其所能执行的任务。几个特定的细分市场将立即从拟议的技术中受益，包括310亿美元的海上风电市场，20亿美元的港口自动化市场，2330亿美元的水产养殖市场等等。除了市场影响，人类还需要海洋数据来了解过度捕捞和气候变化的严重危险。这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的重点是设计自动海上车辆所需的系统和软件，以符合海上车辆的国际碰撞规则（COLREGS）。行业在创建符合COLREGS的自主性方面面临的困难是，这些规则的制定是基于经验丰富的海员能够在独特情况下做出定性解释的期望。这导致了一套描述性而非规定性的规则，这些规则对人类水手很好，但很难在软件中实现。第一阶段项目的目标包括能够按照COLREGS运行的自主系统的设计和仿真。除了模拟之外，该软件还可以部署到小型自主水面车辆上进行初步的水上测试。预期的结果包括一个能够在一个记录的条件范围内保持COLREGS合规性的系统。安全系统设计、优化控制和机器学习技术的有效实施可以结合在一起，生产出第一批在拥挤的水道环境中值得信赖的自主海洋车辆。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to advance the productivity and safety of operations across the entire $1.3 trillion Blue Economy. Maritime operations routinely involve significant risks to human life and property and consequently bear extraordinarily high operating costs. Autonomous ocean vehicles (falling under the Robotics technology area) are being rapidly adopted by science, commercial, and defense organizations due to their potential to dramatically reduce cost and risk. The success of the proposed project will advance the state of the art for commercial autonomous vehicle compliance with international laws regulating interactions between maritime vessels at sea. Giving autonomous ocean vehicles the ability to interact with crewed vessels safely and predictably will accelerate the adoption of these tools and the missions they enable. Several specific market segments stand to benefit immediately from the proposed technology, including the $31B offshore wind market, the $2B port automation market, the $233B aquaculture market, and dozens of others. Beyond market impacts, humanity needs ocean data to understand the critical dangers of overfishing and climate change.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is focused on the design of systems and software needed for autonomous ocean vehicles to comply with the international collision regulations (COLREGS) for maritime vehicles. The difficulty the industry has faced in creating COLREGS compliant autonomy is the fact that the rules were developed with the expectation that experienced mariners would be able to make qualitative interpretations in unique situations. That led to a descriptive rather than prescriptive set of rules that is good for human mariners, but difficult to implement in software. The objectives of this Phase I project include the design and simulation of autonomous systems able to operate in compliance with the COLREGS. In addition to simulations, the software may be deployed to small autonomous surface vehicles for preliminary on-water testing. Anticipated results include a system able to maintain COLREGS compliance within a documented envelope of conditions. The effective implementation of safe system design, optimized control, and machine learning techniques can combine to produce the first autonomous ocean vehicles that can be trusted in congested waterway settings.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.