Fundamental principles of passage planning for autonomous vessels

This article aims to depict the fundamentals of passage planning and route management for an autonomous vessels (AV). It presents a derivation of such a voyage passage plan, its step-by-step analysis, and a comparison to its conventional equivalent. This passage plan consists of four major parts: dock and harbour, en route, approach, and mooring stages. The whole activity of passage planning itself may be divided into the following stages: appraisal, planning, execution, and monitoring. The paper concludes with an overview of potential future applications and use of mentioned content.