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

SBIR 第一阶段：碰撞规则 (COLREG) 意识自主，以确保有人和无人船只的安全交互

• 批准号: 2151658
• 负责人: Michael Flanigan
• 金额: $ 25.6万
• 依托单位: SEASATELLITES, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-15 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2151658&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Collision; Regulations; COLREG

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.

小型企业创新研究(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运营效率和安全性。海上作业经常涉及对人的生命和财产的重大风险，因此承担了极高的作业费用。自主海洋航行器(归入机器人技术领域)正迅速被科学、商业和国防组织采用，因为它们具有显著降低成本和风险的潜力。拟议项目的成功将推动商业自动驾驶车辆遵守规范海上船只之间相互作用的国际法的最新水平。赋予自主海洋航行器与载人船只安全和可预测地互动的能力，将加速这些工具及其实现的任务的采用。几个特定的细分市场将立即从拟议的技术中受益，包括价值310亿美元的海上风能市场，价值20亿美元的港口自动化市场，价值2330亿美元的水产养殖市场，以及其他数十个市场。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关键危险。这个小企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的重点是设计自动海洋航行器遵守国际海上航行器碰撞规则(COLREGS)所需的系统和软件。该行业在创建符合COLREGS的自治权方面面临的困难是，制定这些规则的目的是希望有经验的海员能够在特殊情况下做出定性解释。这导致了一套描述性的、而不是指令性的规则，这对人类水手来说是好的，但很难在软件中实现。该第一阶段项目的目标包括设计和模拟能够按照COLREGS运行的自主系统。除了模拟，该软件还可以部署在小型自动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记录的条件范围内保持COLREGS合规性的系统。安全系统设计的有效实施、优化的控制和机器学习技术可以结合在一起，生产出第一个在拥堵的水道环境中值得信赖的自主海洋航行器。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。