Radar and ARPA Manual

RADAR PLOTTING

323

The International Regulations for Preventing Colli-

sions at Sea form a framework within which all man-

oeuvres must conform. Unfortunately, the regulations

only work well for two-ship encounters, beyond which

conflicts may arise. Further, terms such as 'early', 'sub-

stantial' and 'close-quarters' are quantitatively imprecise

and so encoding of the rules is far from simple.

Computational techniques can now facilitate the

encoding of 'experience': if experienced mariners are

presented with complex encounters which are known to

cause difficulty, their solutions can be analysed and the

principles learned by the computer which