APPLIED SOFT COMPUTING, cilt.9, sa.4, ss.1217-1224, 2009 (SCI-Expanded)
Despite modern navigation devices, there are still some problems for navigating of vessels in narrow waterways because of geographical structures and various disturbances. In this study, a guidance and an early warning method by means of predicting three-minute-ahead position of a vessel, especially in the turning points, has been developed for navigating in narrow waterways. The Istanbul Strait has been specifically studied as a model. Since operators in Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) can watch only straight bearing of vessels on VTS panels but especially for turning regions, they have to foresee a risk on time which may result in a disaster. The objective of this study is to predict the future coordinates of a manually controlled vessel using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN).