This paper presents an improvement for calculating method of astronomical ship position based on circle of equal altitude equation. In addition, to enhance the accuracy of ship position achieved from solving equation system, the authors used singular value decomposition (SVD) in least square method instead of normal decomposition. In maths, the SVD was proved more numerically stable than normal decomposition. Therefore, the solution of equation system will be more efficient and the result would be more accurate than previous methods. By proposal algorithm, a computer program have been developed to help the navigators in calculating directly ship position when the modern equipment has failure. Finally, some of experiments are carried out to verify effectiveness of proposed algorithm, the results show that the accuracy of ship position based on new method is better than the intercept method.

• Van-Suong Nguyen(Division of Maritime Transportation System, Gradute school of Mokpo National Maritime University)
• Namkyun Im(Division of Maritime Transportation System, Mokpo National Maritime University) Corresponding author