Ship voyage optimization for safe and energy-efficient navigation: A dynamic programming approach

The paper presents a 3D dynamic programming based ship voyage optimization method, aiming to select the optimal path and speed profile for a ship voyage on the basis of weather forecast maps. The optimization is performed in accordance to a minimum fuel consumption strategy taking also into account ship motions and comfort. The optimization is carried out in a discretized space-time domain: the ship voyage is parametrized as a multi-stage decision process in order to formulate a dynamic programming optimization problem. Waves and wind conditions are estimated for each route segment by weather forecasting maps then seakeeping related indexes and fuel oil consumption are computed taking into account wave-induced ship motions and added resistance. The best routing solution is thus selected by a dynamic programming algorithm developed and implemented by the authors. Results and discussion of the proposed method are presented for a merchant ship application in a test case voyage through the Northern Atlantic Ocean and compared to the constant speed great circle solution.