The skipper’s advisor: An expert system for coastal navigation

Abstract

Now is the time to revive the idea of the widespread use of expert systems in various fields using modern hardware and software technology. Navigation in littoral waters is an appropriate application for expert systems because it requires many different kinds of knowledge and expertise. The availability of information on the Internet, including data suitable for machine processing, may facilitate the creation of such a system. However, one must conduct an in-depth study of the issue to reach an effective solution to this challenge. This chapter describes the ideas embodied in a draft of the expert system, a research prototype of the system, and the experiments using it.