Challenges and Real-world Validation of Autonomous Surface Vehicle Decision-making System

Autonomous decision-making is key to safe and efficient marine autonomy, as global marine industry comprises over 90 percent of the world’s cargo transportation. Challenges of the real-world validation in the aquatic domain limits the wide-spread of ASVs despite their promising societal impacts. We propose and demonstrate the real-world validation platform and comprehensive algorithm steps. Such a framework will serve as a more explainable and reliable decision-making system of ASVs as well as autonomous vehicles in other domains.