An environment is required that will allow the generation of data that can be provided to a KEEL Cognitive Engine that is responsible for controlling the behavior of a ship. The ship will operate autonomously based on the KEEL Engine, or the KEEL Engine will be used to augment human command decisions to keep ships from colliding. In production, sensors will provide this data.
Two text boxes are shown in the upper right corner of the screen. These provide a textual representation of the information that will be provided to the KEEL Engine. For example, a message "S2 moving forward 36 accelerating" means that Ship 2 is moving forward with a normalized speed of 36 and it is accelerating. When interpreted by Ship 1, Ship 1 will determine if Ship 2 is moving toward it, or away from it, and how it should respond.
The operational scenario is created by manipulating the two ships on the screen using the mouse and keyboard. Ships (S1 and S2) are shown as two circles on the screen. The circles indicate a detection range, where a ship can see and detect inofrmation about the other ship. Consider that the ship is a point in the center of the circles.
Use the mouse to reposition the ships on the screen with drag and drop.
To adjust the parameters of a ship, position the mouse over that ship and adjust as follows:
With the mouse positioned over a ship, use the mouse wheel: rolling forward will show a blue line extending in the present heading of the ship, indicating it is accelerating in that direction. Rolling the mouse wheel backward will decrease the speed of the ship (decelerate) until it stops (no line visible). Continuing to roll the mouse wheel backward and you will see a red line protruding from the center, indicating that the ship is accelerating in the backward direction. While in reverse, rolling the wheel forward will decelerate until 0 speed is reached, and then accelerate in a forward direction.
Double clicking on a ship with the Shift Key held down will remove the acceleration / deceleration indication (showing constant speed).
With the mouse positioned over a ship, hold the Shift Key down and use the rollerball to rotate the ship. If you have assinged a speed to the ship you will see the blue line (forward) or red line (reverse) rotating.
With the mouse positioned over a ship, hold the Alt Key down and use the rollerball to set the rate of turn left or right. A line perpendicular to the Speed/Heading line will be drawn. This will indicate the rudder position of the ship. You will note that if you change the speed of the ship from forward to reverse, or vice versa, the ship Turning Rate will switch from left to right or right to left.
Ship 1 (self) has a small ball that can be dragged on the screen to indicate a "desired heading", or "target way point" for Ship 1. The assumption is that it is unlikely that one could determine the "desired heading" of the other ship.
The KEEL-based Policy Engine (for the ship) will take the information and create control signals for operational commands (adjusted speed, heading, forward/reverse) and warning / advisory information messages for crew. This will be the operational policy for a ship. This could be used to control the ship, or counsel or support human control.
The objective is to create a system that generates data that might be observed by a ship, in order for it to use its operational policy to avoid a collision.
Demonstrate an environment for creating and testing a KEEL-based operational policy that will control the ship. This is also a work in progress. This demonstrates a much more complex environment that can only operate on a desktop computer as multiple applications (The KEEL Toolkit for policy development, and the Policy Evaluation System) a video or face to face meeting is the only way to show what is going on.
Video demonstrating the Ship Collision Avoidance Policy Development and Test
In addition to a system that supports ship autonomy, a Ship Collision Warning System is needed:
Demo of Ship Collision Warning System
Influence Diagram for Ship Collision Warning System
KEEL Model of Ship Collision Warning System