| The development of unmanned ships has always attracted attention,International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea,1972(hereinafter referred to as the“COLREGs”)is the code of action formulated by the International Maritime Organization to regulate the navigation of ships at sea.Unmanned ships also need to comply with the COLREGs.The COLREGs are rules of action for ship operators,so it needs to be analyzed whether it can be applied to emerging unmanned ships.Based on the maritime environment,international conventions and national legislation,combining the development of the collision avoidance technology of unmanned ships and modern intelligent equipment,analyze the specific problems of the COLREGs applicable to unmanned ships,and put forward corresponding suggestions.The introduction part of the paper briefly introduces the technical background and development status of autonomous navigation of unmanned ships,summarizes the research on this issue from various circles at home and abroad,and also summarizes the problems,research methods and innovations that the paper intends to solve,this paper is divided into four parts.The first part describes the application of the COLREGs to unmanned ships,analyzes the identification and categories of unmanned ships,and determines that unmanned ships belong to the category of ships by analyzing international conventions and national legislation.Combining with the provisions of the COLREGs,it clarifies the adjustment and application of the rules to unmanned ships,and summarizes the main provisions of the COLREGs that are problematic in the application of unmanned ships.The second part analyzes the application of the general provisions of the COLREGs to unmanned ships.It analyzes and studies that unmanned ships,as special structures and types of ships,should be specially designed for signal lights,shapes or whistle signals shall.At different stages of the development of unmanned ships,the legal status of on-board manipulators and shore-based manipulators are analyzed respectively.The third part proposes the introduction of the “equivalent” clause,clarifies the legal meaning of the clause,and stipulates the specific content of the “equivalent”clause,Analyzed the requirements of “equivalent” clauses for unmanned ships at different stages,discussed he development of the collision avoidance technology of unmanned ships and modern intelligent equipment.Based on the provisions of the COLREGs,the specific issues resolved by the “equivalent” clauses are studied,including the application of the "lookout" clause and the “visually from the other”clause to unmanned ships.The fourth part studies the related problems of the encounter situation in which unmanned ships participate,analyzes the different encounter situations in the COLREGs,and analyzes the problems existing in the encounter situation in which unmanned ships participate.It further elaborates the limitations of the current collision avoidance technology for unmanned ships and the impact on the collision avoidance effect that the unmanned ships can achieve by taking collision avoidance actions.It is proposed to make full use of the advanced communication equipment of unmanned ships and use the “negotiatory collision avoidance” to takes collision avoidance actions to ensure the efficiency and safety of collision avoidance actions. |
