SEAMLESS research advances intelligent collision-free navigation for autonomous vessels
- 25/06/2026
A new scientific publication from the SEAMLESS project presents an innovative guidance framework that enhances the safety and intelligence of Autonomous Surface Vessels (ASVs), supporting their deployment in complex maritime and inland waterway environments.
The paper, “An Intelligent Guidance Framework for Collision-Free Navigation of Autonomous Surface Vessels using Semantic Information and Traffic Rule Awareness”, has been published in the Control Engineering Practice journal proceedings as part of the IFAC World Congress 2026. It has also been selected as a joint conference and journal contribution, reflecting its scientific excellence, and will be presented during the IFAC World Congress 2026, taking place in Busan, Republic of Korea.
The research addresses one of the key challenges for autonomous waterborne transport: enabling vessels to navigate safely while complying with maritime traffic regulations in dynamic operational environments.
The proposed framework combines semantic information describing traffic rules and the surrounding operational context with real-time sensor data to support intelligent path planning and decision-making. A modular finite-state machine identifies the vessel’s traffic role, while an advanced path-planning algorithm computes safe, collision-free trajectories that account for both other vessels and surrounding infrastructure. The selected route is then executed through a Line-of-Sight guidance and control system.
The framework was validated through a series of representative navigation scenarios, including head-on and crossing encounters in both short-sea and inland waterway environments. The results demonstrate the approach’s adaptability, efficiency and ability to support safe autonomous navigation across different operational settings.
This work directly contributes to SEAMLESS’ objective of enabling reliable, trustworthy and intelligent autonomous waterborne logistics by developing advanced decision-support capabilities for autonomous vessel operations.
The paper will be presented at the IFAC World Congress 2026 during the session “JO-CEP: Embodied-AI in Marine Systems” on Monday, 24 August 2026 (14:10–14:30) at Exhibition Center 1 – Room 317, providing an opportunity to share SEAMLESS research with the international control systems and autonomous maritime community.
