Improved Vessel Trajectory Prediction Model Based on Stacked-BiGRUs

An intelligent maritime navigation system is expected to play an important role in the realm of Internet of Vessels (IoV). As a key technology in navigation systems, vessel trajectory prediction technology is critical to the IoV. Automatic identification system (AIS), an automated tracking system, is used extensively for vessel trajectory prediction. However, certain characteristics in the AIS data, such as the large number of anchored trajectories in the area, anomalous sharp turns of some trajectories, and the behavioral differences of vessels in different segments, limit the prediction accuracy. In this study, we propose a novel vessel trajectory prediction model for accurate prediction with the following characteristics: (1) an anchor trajectory elimination algorithm to eliminate anchor trajectories; (2) a statistical trajectory restoration algorithm to repair sharp turning; (3) a two-stage clustering algorithm (D-KMEANS) to distinguish vessel behavior; and (4) a deep bidirectional gate recurrent unit (Stacked-BiGRUs) model to predict vessel trajectory and compare the accuracy of the model before and after improvement. The results show that the mean square error and the mean absolute error of the improved model are reduced by 27% and 46%, respectively. This research shows good potential for maritime navigation early warning and safety.