Determination of ship approach parameters in the polar coordinates system

An essential aspect of the safety of navigation is avoiding collisions with other vessels and natural or man made navigational obstructions. To solve this kind of problem the navigator relies on automatic anti-collision ARPA systems, or uses a geometric method and makes radar plots. In both cases radar measurements are made: bearing (or relative bearing) on the target position and distance, both naturally expressed in the polar coordinates system originating at the radar antenna. We first convert original measurements to an ortho-Cartesian coordinate system. Then we solve collision avoiding problems in rectangular planar coordinates, and the results are transformed to the polar coordinate system. This article presents a method for an analysis of a collision situation at sea performed directly in the polar coordinate system. This approach enables a simpler geometric interpretation of a collision situation.