Development of automatic course modification system using fuzzy inference

Navigational safety is highly demanded in order to prevent marine accidents. The authors had already proposed collision avoidance systems using fuzzy inference to evaluate the risk of collision and to define countermeasures in order to avoid collision with other ships. In this paper, the authors introduce experimental system which was built for evaluation of automatic navigation system. As the first step of model experiment of the automatic navigation system, results of model test for course modification activated by steering control using fuzzy inference is shown. The results represent that the automatic rudder control system for course modification works well for model ships.