Although the amount of sea ice has decreased due to the recent warming of the Arctic Ocean, there is a lot of thick sea ice depending on the season and the area, so it is necessary to decide whether to avoid or break the sea ice to navigate safely. Since the Arctic Circle is of great political and commercial interest and is expected that there will be more navigational opportunities for ships in the future, ensuring the safety of operations is urgent by reducing the risk and preserving the Arctic sea environment.To propose the optimum route for NSR (Northern Sea Route), we have developed and implemented a web application on ADS (Arctic Data archive System) based on the NSR search algorithm developed by the NSR Research Group (Yamaguchi Laboratory, University of Tokyo) of the ArCS project. This system is constructed so that anyone can easily calculate the optimum NSR route and compare and examine the course by accessing the web page. In calculating the optimum route, we estimate the shipping speed by the Ice Index method considering the sea ice distribution and the ship's performance and use the A* search algorithm to search the route. The Ice Index method estimates ship speed based on the Ice Index, which is an index showing the difficulty of navigation proposed in the International Northern Sea Route Programme (INSROP). The A* search algorithm is a type of graph search algorithm, and this system searches for a route to minimize the total cruising distance and arrival time. The user sets various parameters (departure/arrival position, departure time, icebreaking capacity, draft, etc.) and presses the start calculation button, and the web application automatically calculates the optimal route. The application automatically obtains the required input data from the ADS server and you can check the calculation result on the web screen.Currently, we use AMSR2 products sea ice concentration and sea ice thickness as input data when estimating ship speed. For this reason, it has not been possible to calculate future planned routes. In the near future, we plan to realize the route prediction calculation by performing numerical prediction calculation of sea ice using IcePOM and using the calculation result as input data.

Development and Implementation of an Arctic Sea Route Search System

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/OMAE/OMAE2021/volume/85116

OMAE 2021

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