The instructor of a full mission marine simulator faces a daunting task, controlling several target ships under varying environmental conditions while responding to a variety of communications. This project applies computer agent technology to an instructor station. Each target ship is controlled by a collision avoidance agent which takes command of the ship and a track-keeping agent which acts as an assistant, sending the collision avoidance agent advisory messages. Experiments have been performed for a number of collision situations in varying environmental conditions. An analysis of the results demonstrates the potential of such a system for producing realistic target ship motion, including track-keeping and some collision avoidance manoeuvres, thus reducing the instructor’s immediate load.
