DESCRIZIONE
A decision aid system for a vessel belonging to a plurality of vessels in data communication with a remotely located control hub comprises: associated with each of the plurality of vessels, a sub-system comprising one or more sensors for monitoring the local environment of the vessel, a node processor for processing data collected by the one or more sensors and a data storage device; and a controller located remotely from the node processors and in two-way data communication with each of the node processors. Each data storage device maintains an historic record of vessel states recorded by the one or more sensors, corresponding control actions taken in response to those vessel states and the ensuing vessel states resulting from those control actions. Each node processor is configured to evaluate computational models and/or simulations to predict possible future states from a subset of the historic record and select an appropriate control action to achieve a desired ensuing vessel state resulting from the selected control action. In making a decision on an appropriate action, the system first interrogates historic data stored in the vessel's database for a previously successful decision. If there is no record of a previously successful decision, simulations or computational models based on stored data are used to try to determine actions which will result in an acceptable outcome. Only when an appropriate action cannot be determined using onboard data, the system communicates the vessels predicament to a control hub which is able to communicate a recommended action to the vessel. [Image Omitted]