Navigating improved water safety through ATONs

The waterways serve a high importance when it comes to America’s economy. Commercial vessels move around $5.4 trillion through the water each year. A matter of such importance involves a lot of thought into safety. A group of Grainger Engineering researchers is studying safety measures through a project with the United States Coast Guard and the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute. 

Aids to Navigation (ATONs) come in the form of buoys, beacons, and ranges that are visible to pilots and can be detected by ships’ radars. They are used to mark shipping lanes, hazards, and protected areas. Given the widespread use of GPS and electronic navigation systems (ENS), there is a question about to what extent these ATONs are still necessary. 

Dr. Heather Filippini is a research scientist at the Illinois Applied Research Institute (ARI) at UIUC. She is the principal investigator on a study into measuring ATON impact on risk in waterways. This will help the Coast Guard determine which ATONs are most essential under a variety of conditions, including after major storms or if GPS is inoperable. 

Filippini said the project-which launched in September, has three thrusts. The first thrust involves measuring human pilot abilities to navigate in various scenarios. “Pilots typically use visual perception of the ATONs along with radar and ENS displays to navigate,” said Filippini.  To measure the impact of these various navigation cues, Filippini and the team are conducting experiments with human subjects and a ship simulator at the Coast Guard Academy. Filippini said the Coast Guard is extremely invested in this project. She said they are interested because part of their role is to maintain the ATONs and keep waterways safe. 

Dr. Eliezer Colina Morles will lead the second thrust in developing a “fuzzy logic risk model,” which is a human-readable way to combine risk factors with different modalities into a single overall risk assessment. It will incorporate many elements affecting risk in the waterways including waterway configuration, marine traffic composition, weather, and the effects of ATONs on navigation. 

The third thrust is being led by Professor Eleftheria Kontou, who serves as co-PI on this project. It focuses on the consequences of waterway incidents and the impact of ATONs on their magnitude and severity. “We need to understand [the] impact to those navigating the waterways,” said Kontou. Some of those incidents’ consequences have large economic and environmental implications. Those could mean loss of life or revenue. The researchers want to establish a model of the ATONs’ impact on these consequences. 

Filippini brought up the Ever Given, a container ship that ran aground in the Suez Canal in 2021. The blockage led to a traffic jam as other ships tried to sail through the canal. Not only did the blockage hold up traffic, but it also impeded their goods from getting to their destinations in a timely manner, causing a global trading issue. 

A study into how ATONs affect risk on the waterways is unique. “It hasn’t been done before,” said Filippini. After their project is complete, waterway designers will have a quantifiable way of determining an ATON’s efficacy in keeping waters safe.