Optimizing Pilotage Efficiency with Autonomous Surface Vehicle Assistance

Efficient pilotage planning is essential, particularly due to the increasing demand for skilled pilots amid frequent vessel traffic. Addressing pilot shortages and ensuring navigational safety, this study presents an innovative pilot-ASV scheduling strategy. This approach utilizes autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) to assist or replace junior pilots in specific tasks, thereby alleviating pilot resource constraints and upholding safety standards. We develop a comprehensive mathematical model that accommodates pilot work time windows, various pilot levels, and ASV battery limitations. An improved artificial bee colony algorithm is proposed to solve this model effectively, integrating breadth-first and depth-first search strategies to enhance solution quality and efficiency uniquely. Extensive numerical experiments corroborate the model’s effectiveness, showing that our integrated optimization approach decreases vessel waiting times by an average of 9.18% compared to traditional methods without ASV integration. The findings underscore the potential of pilot-ASV scheduling to significantly improve both the efficiency and safety of vessel pilotages.