1
Return

AIS-Based Vessel Trajectory Prediction Using H3-Indexed Historical Trajectory Context

delete2026-08-13
delete0
delete
OA
AI
Z
Zhounan Xu
R
Rufu Qin *
DOI:10.3390/jmse14161496delete
deleteOriginal
deleteOriginal request for help
deleteShare
deleteSave
Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Deep learning-based vessel trajectory prediction using Automatic Identification System (AIS) has become a hot topic in the fields of maritime traffic monitoring, situational awareness, and navigational decision support. However, most previous studies have focused primarily on end-to-end model training using trajectory data from a single water area, which limits the resulting models’ ability to generalize to regions with different traffic patterns. To address this issue, this study proposes a method that constructs traffic context from historical AIS records at multiple geographic resolutions using H3, a hexagonal hierarchical spatial indexing system, and integrates this context with a Transformer-based trajectory predictor. A reliability-aware selector determines the contribution of the context to the final prediction, conditioning this decision on the vessel’s motion state and the retrieved historical patterns. Experiments on AIS data from three distinct water areas demonstrated that H3-indexed context improved cross-water prediction accuracy without requiring model retraining on the target area. These findings demonstrate that H3-indexed context, structured at multiple geographic resolutions and integrated through a selective mechanism, serves as transferable spatial context for vessel trajectory prediction.
Keywords:
Automatic Identification System (AIS)
vessel trajectory prediction
historical traffic context
H3 spatial indexing
Transformer
maritime situational awareness

Journal

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering cover
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
IF:
2.8
Papers:
4.2K
Citations:
2.3W

Organization

T
tongji university
Scholars:
7.5W
Papers: 5.8W
Citations: 98
Cited Papers

Cited Papers

Citing Papers

Citing Papers