Defining lines of maximum probability for the design of patrol vessel itineraries

In this paper we deal with the problem of designing preemptive patrolling itineraries at sea. As a case study we use real data provided by the Portuguese Navy, concerning search and rescue missions. This can be seen as a curve fitting problem in which we aim at predicting future occurrences based on previous reported ones. We propose a method for the design of itineraries based on the use of a 1 dimensional self-organizing map. A number of tests are performed using self-organizing maps of different size. We conclude that the proposed method has a number of relevant characteristics such as robustness, speed and flexibility which are particularly adequate to the problem in hands.