Objectives Aimed to the development requirements of intelligent shipping and domestication of meteorological navigation in China, a ship multi-objective route planning method based on the fusion of A* and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA II) is proposed to adapt to complex and diverse long-distance navigation tasks.
Methods By incorporating the A* algorithm into NSGA II to guide the search direction and accelerate the convergence speed, an environmental data model and objective functions are constructed. Simulation verification is performed using the trans-Pacific route.
Results The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed model and algorithm can obtain a uniformly distributed and diversified Pareto optimal route set. All routes can successfully avoid areas with severe weather conditions, and the most suitable route for the ship can be selected according to decision-makers' needs.
Conclusion In summary, the proposed method can be applied to optimize ship ocean routes under multiple constraint conditions and solve routes that meet voyage objectives, thus can reduce operational costs, improve shipping efficiency, and provide support for ship meteorological navigation and future intelligent ship navigation.