Method For Determining An Optimal Naval Navigation Routes From Historical GNSS Data Of Naval Trajectories

A determination method of determining optimal routes for navigating naval vehicles by analysis of historical GNSS data, which optimal routes consist of sequences of waypoints. The determination method comprises the steps of: reducing the data by using an extraction method to retain only significant positions of a trajectory while keeping information about speed and heading changes; evaluating trajectories similarity by using a distance measure; applying a clustering algorithm to verify whether different patterns of trajectories exist for ships navigating the same area and assess whether the clusters extracted automatically from the data reflect the actual known traffic flows inside a port area; and extracting the most representative trajectories from the clusters extracted and the corresponding waypoints obtained by a further clustering algorithm applied to the points of the trajectories belonging to the same cluster of trajectories.