An improved A* algorithm for fuel-efficient ship weather routing

With the continual rising of oil price and the intensification of greenhouse effect, how to reduce operational fuel consumption and decrease air pollution is very meaningful. This paper establishes a fuel consumption prediction model and presents an improved A∗ algorithm for fuel-efficient ship weather routing. The improved A∗ algorithm measures the angle between a segment from the starting node to the ending node and the true north line. Then, it takes the angle as heuristic information to determine which nodes need to be searched at each current node. Eventually, it selects the next optimal node from these searched nodes. This improved algorithm is applicable for convex obstacles. The simulation results of improved A∗ algorithm show that when the obstacles are convex obstacles, this new method can find the fuel-efficient route and reduce the amount of total searched nodes effectively.