Explainable AI for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS): Adaptive Interfaces and Trustworthy Human-AI Collaboration

Abstract

Autonomous navigation in maritime domains is accelerating alongside advances in artificial intelligence, sensing, and connectivity. Opaque decision-making and poorly calibrated human-automation interaction remain key barriers to safe adoption. This article synthesizes 100 studies on automation transparency for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) spanning situation awareness (SA), human factors, interface design, and regulation. We (i) map the Guidance-Navigation-Control stack to shore-based operational modes -- remote supervision (RSM) and remote control (RCM) -- and identify where human unsafe control actions (Human-UCAs) concentrate in handover and emergency loops; (ii) summarize evidence that transparency features (decision rationales, alternatives, confidence/uncertainty, and rule-compliance indicators) improve understanding and support trust calibration, though reliability and predictability often dominate trust; (iii) distill design strategies for transparency at three layers: sensor/SA acquisition and fusion, HMI/eHMI presentation (textual/graphical overlays, color coding, conversational and immersive UIs), and engineer-facing processes (resilient interaction design, validation, and standardization). We integrate methods for Human-UCA identification (STPA-Cog + IDAC), quantitative trust/SA assessment, and operator workload monitoring, and outline regulatory and rule-based implications including COLREGs formalization and route exchange. We conclude with an adaptive transparency framework that couples operator state estimation with explainable decision support to reduce cognitive overload and improve takeover timeliness. The review highlights actionable figure-of-merit displays (e.g., CPA/TCPA risk bars, robustness heatmaps), transparent model outputs (rule traceability, confidence), and training pipelines (HIL/MIL, simulation) as near-term levers for safer MASS operations.