The objective of this study was to design and evaluate new means of complying to time constraints by presenting aircraft target taxi speeds on a head-up display (HUD). Four different HUD presentations were iteratively developed from paper sketches into digital prototypes. Each HUD presentation reflected different levels of information presentation. A subsequent evaluation included 32 pilots, with varying flight experience, in usability tests. The participants subjectively assessed which information was most useful to comply with time constraints. The assessment was based on six themes including information, workload, situational awareness, stress, support and usability. The evaluation consisted of computer-simulated taxi-runs, self-assessments and statistical analysis. Information provided by a graphical vertical tape descriptive/predictive HUD presentation, including alpha-numerical information redundancy, was rated most useful. Differences between novice and expert pilots can be resolved by incorporating combinations of graphics and alpha-numeric presentations. The findings can be applied for further studies of combining navigational and time-keeping HUD support during taxi.

Signage design has been considered critically important for wayfinding, being a functional medium of delivering environmental information. Complex institutional environments have several factors affecting the wayfinding, including but not limited to the design of information signage and its visual preference. Visual preferences of information design in wayfinding signage vary, depending on the cultural and individual differences. This study explores the variance in design and visual preferences of wayfinding signage and its influencing elements. Responses through online questionnaire have been accumulated by the participants from Hong Kong and Pakistan based on their design and visual preference of campus wayfinding signage. Questions were asked related to the user preferences for signage colour if in line with the institutional visual identity, mono or multi-colour coding of information and its visual volume. In total, 170 university students and visitors participated in the exploratory study from the respective countries. The results demonstrated that participants of Hong Kong preferred inline colours of signage, along with mono or less colour coding and detailed information. While the other group preferred attractive colours with multi-colour coding and less detailed wayfinding information with pictograms. Individual differences concerning age, literacy level and gender were also computed, however trivial differences have been recorded. This study suggests the need for detailed cross-cultural investigation concerning elements of signage design and visual preference to identify the drivers for culturally consistent university signage.

This study aims to examine the predictors of professional commitment of the Chinese new generation, divided into post-80s and post-90s cohorts. A questionnaire survey was employed to collect data from Chinese seafaring officers of these cohorts. The results through hierarchical regression analysis present the two cohorts as having both similar and different predictors. The main difference is that company management and policies positively drive the post-80s cohort to work at sea but not the post-90s. The main similarity is that the work itself is the most important predictor for both cohorts. This study contributes to helping maritime companies to estimate the possibility of Chinese new generation officers quitting sea jobs and can be of value to both managers and authorities as they seek to comprehend the generational dynamic features to better cope with the problem of shortage of younger qualified officers.

Scouring and sedimentation effects on the seabed induced by ship propellers during ship manoeuvring near harbour structures affect both structure stability and ship manoeuvring capabilities. This contribution proposes solutions at an operational level using the automatic identification system (AIS) and a bridge simulator. Two new alternative manoeuvres were designed and tested on a bridge simulator to obtain expected maximum scour depth and the results were compared with that of real manoeuvres (i) using mooring lines, and (ii) with tug assistance. A total of 42 test scenarios combining several manoeuvres and meteorological conditions were reproduced. Results confirmed a clear reduction in erosion depth with the alternative manoeuvres, with total reduction when using the tugboat. The presented methodology can be very useful to port authorities to prevent the effects of ship erosion on harbour infrastructures.

The very high frequency data exchange system (VDES) is promising in promoting electronic navigation (E-navigation) and improving navigation safety. The multiple access control (MAC) protocol is crucial to the transmission performance of VDES. The self-organising time division multiple access (SOTDMA) protocol, as the only access mode given by current recommendations, leads to a high rate of transmission collisions in the traditional automatic identification system (AIS), especially with heavy traffic loads. This paper proposes a novel feedback based time division multiple access (FBTDMA) protocol to address the problems caused by SOTDMA, such that collision of transmissions can be avoided in information transmission among vessels. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed FBTDMA outperforms the traditional SOTDMA in terms of channel utilisation and throughput, and significantly reduces the transmission collision rate. The study is expected to provide insights into VDES standardisation and E-navigation modernisation.

The purpose of this study is to test eye tracking in studying the usability of electronic chart display and information systems (ECDIS), one of the major components of ships’ bridge navigation systems. The carriage and adequate use of ECDIS on merchant ships is mandated by international regulations to improve maritime safety. The aim of this study is to test eye tracking as an assessment tool for usability of ECDIS. Eye movement data, collected from experienced port pilots operating on three different models of ECDIS, was analysed for the study. Significant differences were found between time to first fixation measurements among three different ECDIS models, as well as differences in heat map visualisations between the participant port pilots and expert users. The results indicate that eye tracking is an effective tool for assessment of the usability of ECDIS. The study, aiming potentially to improve the effectiveness of bridge navigation systems, proposes the integration of eye tracking in research and development of ECDIS, and contributes scientifically to research on eye tracking in marine transportation.

With the characteristics of full autonomy and no accumulated errors, polarisation navigation shows tremendous prospects in underwater scenarios. In this paper, inspired by the polarisation vision of aquatic organisms, a novel point-source polarisation sensor with high spectral adaptability (400 nm–760 nm) is designed for underwater orientation. To enhance the environmental applicability of the underwater polarisation sensor, a novel sensor model based on the underwater light intensity attenuation coefficient and optical coupling coefficient is established. In addition, concerned with the influence of light intensity uncertainty on sensor performance underwater, an antagonistic polarisation algorithm is adopted for the first time, to improve the accuracy of angle of polarisation and degree of polarisation in the low signal-to-noise ratio environment underwater. Finally, indoor and outdoor experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance of the designed polarisation sensor. The results show that the designed point-source polarisation sensor can acquire polarised light and be used for heading determination underwater.

Video monitoring is an important means of ship traffic supervision. In practice, regulators often need to use an electronic chart platform to determine basic information concerning ships passing through a video feed. To enrich the information in the surveillance video and to effectively use multimodal maritime data, this paper proposes a novel ship multi-object tracking technology based on improved single shot multibox detector (SSD) and DeepSORT algorithms. In addition, a night contrast enhancement algorithm is used to enhance the ship identification performance in night scenes and a multimodal data fusion algorithm is used to incorporate the ship automatic identification system (AIS) information into the video display. The experimental results indicate that the ship information tracking accuracies in the day and night scenes are 78⋅2% and 70⋅4%, respectively. Our method can effectively help regulators to quickly obtain ship information from a video feed and improve the supervision of a waterway.

For more efficient aerial surveillance, charging pads are set up at corresponding distances so that an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can sustain its operations without landing. Usually manual intervention is required to land a UAV for charging and so extend its mission. To enable a UAV to operate autonomously, wireless power charging using inductive coupling is proposed. Using this method, the UAV's battery is charged until it reaches the next charging station. This paper focuses on two significant aspects of the process: vision-based navigation for charging pad detection, and wireless power charging. The coils were designed, and other parameters like mutual inductance, coupling coefficient and the distance between the coils for effective power transmission were analysed, using Ansys and Maxwell software. A quadcopter was built, with battery and Lidar sensor connected to the Arduino controller for low battery voltage detection and height measurement, respectively. Whenever the battery voltage is low, the UAV is steered towards the nearest charging pad using the global position navigation system. To test the process, the quadcopter was flown over the charging pad using a vision-based algorithm pre-defined in the image processor (Raspberry Pi B+).

In busy waterways, spatial-temporal discretisation, safe distance and collision avoidance timing are three of the core components of ship traffic flow modelling based on cellular automata. However, these components are difficult to determine in ship traffic simulations because the size, operation and manoeuvrability vary between ships. To solve these problems, a novel traffic flow model is proposed. Firstly, a spatial-temporal discretisation method based on the concept of a standard ship is presented. Secondly, the update rules for ships’ motion are built by considering safe distance and collision avoidance timing, in which ship operation and manoeuvrability are thoroughly considered. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our model, which is implemented through simulating ship traffic flow in a waterway of the Yangtze River, China. By comparing the results with actual observed ship traffic data, our model shows that the behaviours and the characteristics of ships’ motions can be represented very well, which also can be further used to reveal the mechanism that affects the efficiency and safety of ship traffic.

This study investigates the use of augmented reality technology (AR) in the field of maritime navigation and how researchers and designers have addressed AR data visualisation. The paper presents a systematic review analysing the publication type, the AR device, which information elements are visualised and how, the validation method and technological readiness. Eleven AR maritime solutions identified from scientific papers are studied and discussed in relation to previous navigation tools. It is found that primitive information such as course, compass degrees, boat speed and geographic coordinates continue to be fundamental information to be represented even with AR maritime solutions.

Recently, the quality of Maritime Education and Training (MET) has drawn more attention from employers of the shipping industry, because incompetent officers have frequently contributed to ship accidents. The authors intend to explore answers to three questions: (1) Is the quality of Chinese MET satisfactory to the maritime stakeholders? (2) What are the major factors affecting the quality of cadet training? (3) Are there feasible solutions to improve the quality of MET? The authors take China, a major seafarers supplying country, as empirical evidence to disclose the causes of the problems. By an exploratory factor analysis technique, this paper presents the findings of semi-structured interviews and questionnaire surveys and identifies four principal factors affecting the quality of MET in China. Shortage of skillful instructors, lack of onboard training, over-reliance on theoretical teaching, and limited funding sources are prominent factors in this context. Practical solutions are proposed for the purpose of improving the overall competence of Chinese cadets expected to become the dynamic workforce for the global shipping industry.

This study introduces a new real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning method which is suitable for baselines of different lengths. The method merges carrier-phase wide-lane, and ionosphere-free observation combinations (LWLC) instead of using pseudo-range, and carrier-phase ionosphere-free combination (PCLC), or single-frequency pseudo-range and phase combination (P1L1). In a first step, the double-differenced wide-lane ambiguities were calculated and fixed using the pseudo-range and carrier-phase wide-lane combination observations. Once the double-differenced wide-lane integer ambiguities were known, the wide-lane combined observations were regarded as accurate pseudo-range observations. Subsequently, the carrier-phase wide-lane, and ionosphere-free combined observations were used to fix the double-differenced carrier-phase integer ambiguities, achieving the final RTK positioning. The RTK positioning analysis was performed for short, medium, and long baselines, using the P1L1, PCLC, and LWLC methods, respectively. For a short baseline, the LWLC method demonstrated positioning accuracy similar to the P1L1 method, and performed better than the PCLC method. For medium and long baselines, the positioning accuracy of the LWLC method was slightly higher than those of the PCLC and P1L1 methods. In conclusion, the LWLC method provided high-precision RTK positioning results for baselines with different lengths, as it used high-precision carrier-phase observations with fixed ambiguities instead of low-precision pseudo-range observations.

The paper presents the error characteristics of a vehicle dynamic model (VDM)-based integration architecture for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles. Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and inertial measurement unit measurements are fused in an extended Kalman filter (EKF) which uses the VDM as the main process model. Control inputs from the autopilot system are used to drive the navigation solution. Using a predefined trajectory with segments of both high and low dynamics and a variable wind profile, Monte Carlo simulations reveal a degrading performance in varying periods of GNSS outage lasting 10 s, 20 s, 30 s, 60 s and 90 s, respectively. These are followed by periods of re-acquisition where the navigation solution recovers. With a GNSS outage lasting less than 60 s, the position error gradually grows to a maximum of 8⋅4 m while attitude errors in roll and pitch remain bounded, as opposed to an inertial navigation system (INS)/GNSS approach in which the navigation solution degrades rapidly. The model-based approach shows improved navigation performance even with parameter uncertainties over a conventional INS/GNSS integration approach.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic, digital contact-tracing applications (apps) have been at the centre of attention as a digital tool to enable citizens to monitor their social distancing, which appears to be one of the leading practices for mitigating the spread of airborne infectious diseases. Many countries have been working towards developing suitable digital contact-tracing apps to allow the measurement of the physical distance between citizens and to alert them when contact with an infected individual has occurred. However, the adoption of digital contact-tracing apps has faced several challenges so far, including interoperability between mobile devices and users’ privacy concerns. There is a need to reach a trade-off between the achievable technical performance of new technology, false-positive rates, and social and behavioural factors. This paper reviews a wide range of factors and classifies them into three categories of technical, epidemiological and social ones, and incorporates these into a compact mathematical model. The paper evaluates the effectiveness of digital contact-tracing apps based on received signal strength measurements. The results highlight the limitations, potential and challenges of the adoption of digital contact-tracing apps.

This paper addresses the fusion of the pseudorange/pseudorange rate observations from the global navigation satellite system and the inertial–visual simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) to achieve reliable navigation of unmanned aerial vehicles. This work extends the previous work on a simulation-based study [Kim et al. (2017). Compressed fusion of GNSS and inertial navigation with simultaneous localisation and mapping. IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, 32(8), 22–36] to a real-flight dataset collected from a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle platform. The dataset consists of measurements from visual landmarks, an inertial measurement unit, and pseudorange and pseudorange rates. We propose a novel all-source navigation filter, termed a compressed pseudo-SLAM, which can seamlessly integrate all available information in a computationally efficient way. In this framework, a local map is dynamically defined around the vehicle, updating the vehicle and local landmark states within the region. A global map includes the rest of the landmarks and is updated at a much lower rate by accumulating (or compressing) the local-to-global correlation information within the filter. It will show that the horizontal navigation error is effectively constrained with one satellite vehicle and one landmark observation. The computational cost will be analysed, demonstrating the efficiency of the method.

Both conflict resolution aid (CRA) and vertical situation display (VSD) systems may contribute to air traffic control (ATC) operations. However, their effectiveness still needs to be examined before being widely adopted in ATC facilities. This study aims to examine empirically the use of CRA and VSD as well as the systems’ interaction in ATC operations. It was found that CRA benefited conflict resolution performance by 13⋅7% and lowered workload by 46⋅4% compared with manually performing the task. The VSD could also reduce the air traffic controllers’ (ATCOs) workload and improve their situation awareness. Ultimately, when the first CRA failure occurred, the situation awareness supported by VSD offset the performance decrements by 30%. The findings from this study demonstrate that integrating VSD with CRA would benefit ATC operations, regardless of the CRA's imperfection.

For torpedo electronic components tested by functional verification, there are characteristics of a few samples and few failures. During service life, it is difficult to analyse and predict the changes in reliability. At present, management's observation of quality is mainly base on failure data, and it is difficult to make predictions about the moments without failure in service life. In this paper, according to the failure data, we consider such factors as performance degradation and detection and use the model of instantaneous failure rate to evaluate the reliability of the detection moments periodically, and predict the reliability of stages through the results of detection moments. The method proposed in this paper, on the one hand, considers the service experience, and on the other combines the detection data, to make the final evaluation result more credible. In addition, this paper predicts the changing trend of reliability between adjacent detection moments, which can provide a useful reference for quality management work.

For maritime safety and security, vessels should be able to predict the trajectories of nearby vessels to avoid collision. This research proposes three novel models based on similarity search of trajectories that predict vessels' trajectories in the short and long term. The first and second prediction models are, respectively, point-based and trajectory-based models that consider constant distances between target and sample trajectories. The third prediction model is a trajectory-based model that exploits a long short-term memory approach to measure the dynamic distance between target and sample trajectories. To evaluate the performance of the proposed models, they are applied to a real automatic identification system (AIS) vessel dataset in the Strait of Georgia, USA. The models' accuracies in terms of Haversine distance between the predicted and actual positions show relative prediction error reductions of 40·85% for the second model compared with the first model and 23% for the third model compared with the second model.

The inertial navigation system/Doppler velocity logger (INS/DVL) plays an important role in ocean navigation. Any DVL malfunction poses serious risks to navigation. A precise detection system is required to detect the initial moments of DVL signal malfunctions; moreover, with loss of DVL, a fault-tolerant scheme (FTS) is necessary for DVL signal reconstruction. In this paper, an evolutionary knowledge-based method, namely improved evolutionary TS-fuzzy (I-eTS), is adopted to build an artificial intelligence (AI)-based pseudo DVL to deal with long-term outage of DVL. By employing Gaussian process regression (GPR) models for fault detection, a new FTS is constructed. To verify the effectiveness of the new fault detection and fault tolerance system, navigation data is gathered by a test setup and algorithms are performed in the laboratory. In the tests, it is demonstrated that the proposed FTS leads to rapid detection of both gradual and abrupt faults, which leads to less interaction between fault detection and FTS.