Watercraft Maneuvering Display for Autonomous State Recognition
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Solution Overview
Problem
Unmanned and automatically maneuvered watercrafts lack effective means for other watercrafts to recognize their maneuvering state, particularly in cases of malfunction or failure, posing safety risks in shared water areas.
Innovation Solution
An automatic watercraft maneuvering system with a propulsion device, steering, and a display that visually distinguishes between operational and non-operational states, including failures and remote control capabilities, to notify other watercrafts of the maneuvering status.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If automatic watercraft maneuvering control is implemented, then watercraft can travel autonomously from departure to destination, but other watercraft cannot recognize the maneuvering state of the automatic watercraft
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies visual notification through color-coded displays to indicate the maneuvering state of the automatic watercraft. The display device shows different colors or visual patterns to represent whether the automatic maneuvering control is executable or not, enabling other watercraft to recognize the current state at a glance without complex communication systems.
2Loss of information
If visual notification of maneuvering state is added, then other watercraft can recognize the state, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The display device in the automatic watercraft serves multiple functions: it displays navigation information for the automatic maneuvering control system and simultaneously provides visual notification of the maneuvering state to other watercraft. By making the display multi-functional, the patent avoids adding separate dedicated notification devices, thereby reducing overall system complexity while achieving state recognition.
Data Source
AI summary
An automatic watercraft maneuvering system includes a propulsion device to propel a watercraft, a steering to change a course of the watercraft, a display to provide visual notification of a state of the watercraft, and a controller configured or programmed to execute an automatic watercraft maneuvering control to control the propulsion device and the steering in order to perform automatic watercraft maneuvering from a departure location to a destination location and control the display according to a state of the automatic watercraft maneuvering control. The controller is configured or programmed to control the display such that a plurality of states including a state in which the automatic watercraft maneuvering control is being executed and a state in which the automatic watercraft maneuvering control is not executable are distinguished and displayed.