Maritime IT & Electronics (Sep/Oct 2011)

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September/October 2011

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1st Maritime IT & Electronics Conference 2011 Safe way forward with ECDIS and e-Navigation Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 October 2011 The Chamber of Shipping, London EC1

Conference Highlights w

The current position and what’s on the horizon?

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Going beyond IMO carriage requirements

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e-Navigation test bed results

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User industry views from owners, ships captains, pilotage and government

Standardisation and user friendliness

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Class view on ECDIS and e-Navigation

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GPS and positioning challenges

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ECDIS and the lessons to be learned for e-Navigation

Plus Pre-conference Seminar Tuesday 18 October 2011, IMarEST HQ, London EC3

Introduction to the Principles of ECDIS and e-Navigation

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Chairman: Capt Kuba Szymanski, Secretary General, InterManager

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Capt Petter Brandt, Stolt Tankers

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Rear Adml Nick Lambert, The UK Hydrographic Office

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David Patraiko, The Nautical Institute

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George Shaw, General Lighthouse Authorities of UK and Ireland (GLA)

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Dr Rolf Skjong, Det Norske Veritas AS

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Dr Nick Ward, IALA e-Navigation Committee

Seminar Leader: Mark Broster, Managing Director, ECDIS Ltd

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Technology

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CONTENTS

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011

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Comment

Data 14 Digging AIS for gold

Tracking 26 Machines to chat more

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News

A new telemetry service will provide more data capacity for M2M, but is it needed?

19th century sailors used social media tools to create a public database of tidal information

Brokers and charterers can sift AIS data to gain competitive advantage 16 Dusting for fingerprints Raw AIS data is prone to corruption so detective work is needed to fill in the gaps

AIS 8

Management 18 Fuel benchmarks online

Diversions Ye olde crowd-sourcing 7

Glimmers of AIS 2.0 Software defined radio (SDR) will pave the way for the arrival of AIS 2.0 10 Sea sea TV Blending satellite AIS with other surveillance data provides a higher resolution picture of what始s happening on the high seas

A new data analytics service will help shipping companies get the best deal for their bunker purchases

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Mobile inspections Spectec has unveiled mobile versions of its inventory and maintenance applications

Spectrum 20 Radar interference Next-gen 4G mobile broadband services should not interfere with maritime radar

Broadband 22 iDirect tunes in Shipowners understand the capabilities of VSAT, but uncertainties remain regarding the business case

Electrical design 29 A shocking waste Tools to manage the design of electrical systems on newbuilds are underpowered

Aldgate House, 33 Aldgate High Street, London. EC3N 1EN. UK Tel: +44 (0) 20 7382 2600 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7382 2669 www.imarest.org Editor: Kevin Tester kevin.tester@imarest.org MITE Advertising Manager: derek.wood@imarest.org Graphic Designer: jo.cooper@imarest.org Publication Sales & Subscriptions: lorraine.jordan@imarest.org Publisher: Derek Wood derek.wood@imarest.org Visit MITE online: www.imarest.org/ publications/ maritimeITelectronics

Navigation 30 Chart distribution The supply chain for electronic charts is overly complex and could be streamlined 33 IMO experts gather IMO始s NAV sub-committee has agreed on new performance standards for VDR, and sets roadmap for e-navigation

Automation 34 Engine data webified Kongsberg Maritime has created a new interface for delivering engine data to engineers both aboard ship and ashore

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漏 Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology (2011). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying, storing in any medium by electronic means or transmitting) without the written permission o f the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 6-10 Kirby Street, London, England, EC1N 8TS, website: www.cla.co.uk email: licence@cla.co.uk. Applications for the copyright owner's written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.

Information published in MARITIME IT & ELECTRONICS does not necessarily represent the views of the publisher. Whilst effort is made to ensure that the information is accurate the publisher makes no representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness or correctness of such information. It accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any loss damage or other liability arising from any use of this publication or the information which it contains.

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COMMENT

Big Brother is watching Kevin Tester Captains don’t like being watched, or so it is said. They lament the growing trend for busy-bodying from those on shore, who think they know better. For the most part, this animosity is due not to fear of being caught doing something they shouldn’t. Rather, so the anecdotes suggest, it is down to the fact that a clerk based in a comfortable air-conditioned office flitting between spreadsheets designed to calculate the maximum operational efficiency is really in no position to appreciate the nuances of what’s actually happening on board a vessel straddling the high seas.

Of course, if it were not for the rapid advances that have been seen in satcoms (which so often fill the pages of this publication), then the Captain would probably feel rather less harassed, could take responsibility and just get on with the job in the way he knew best. Unfortunately however technology cannot be uninvented.

It is thus up to individual shipping companies - or perhaps the industry bodies that look out for their needs - to devise new working practices on how best to embrace the advantages that improved communication can bring whilst letting the Captain fulfil his duty to his employers and to his ship.

Speed cameras It must be remembered though that those shore-based clerks are only trying to be helpful, like an over-insistent car sat-nav. Now, however, the Captain will also have to be increasingly vigilant of speed cameras. National maritime authorities are showing

great interest in the collection of vessel AIS data by satellite, or SAIS. The technology to do this has been quietly under development for a number of years and appears to be on the cusp of breaking into the mainstream.

Ostensibly benign By the end of next year, there are expected to be around 40 satellites in various orbits around the Earth detecting AIS. Many of these are still demonstrator or prototype designs. But the prospect of greatly improved maritime domain awareness has resulted in unbridled enthusiasm for the concept, particularly by nations, such as Canada and Australia, with larger than average ‘domains’ to watch over. And companies such as exactEarth and OrbComm are keen to exploit this for commercial gain.

The stated reasons for wanting ship position data are varied and ostensibly benign: for stepping up anti-piracy activities, for improved search-and-rescue, for oil-spill response and for detecting illegal fishing etc.

Again, like the speed cameras that are placed to prevent accidents and improve road safety, it is hard to argue against such objectives. If you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. But, once the technology has been finessed, how long will it be until we see the maritime equivalent of fixed penalty notices or even London’s congestion charge?

Market intelligence S-AIS data can be harvested and manipulated in other ways too.

As reported in this issue, Commodity Flows, a London-based analyst, has been taking position

Editor

data and blending it with other market intelligence to determine which vessels are carrying what cargoes. Further, based on vessel movements, the company can gain insight on, say, fluctuations of commodity prices.

It is possible other such ‘big data’ applications will emerge.

Perhaps, for example, marrying position data and vessel movements with bunker quality something which might prove of interest to a company like DNV Petroleum Services. Engine manufacturers too would likely be eager to correlate engine telemetry with both the above.

Organic growth As the availability of reliable data increases, so there will be scope to search for new patterns and find new avenues for increased operational or business efficiency. In this context, S-AIS is but one spoke in the wheel. It is worth noting that such applications will grow organically from the bottom up rather than the top-down grandiose ‘masterplans’ so often favoured by the likes of IMO and other official bodies.

For the moment S-AIS is not sufficiently up to scratch, from either a technological perspective or implementation one. The 40 satellites predicted to be watching the seas by 2013 will comprise a hotchpotch of different networks, with little coordination between them.

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NEWS

From 1 January 2012 Rupert Pearce will take over the reins at Inmarsat from current chief executive Andrew Sukawaty, who will become executive chairman. Pearce has recently been appointed to the board as an executive director, thereby bringing into motion the companyʼs previously announced plan to separate the roles of chairman and chief executive.

During his six-year history at Inmarsat, Pearce has been instrumental in shaping the strategic direction of the company, including the acquisition of its largest distributor, Stratos; formulating and executing the

Inmarsat ushers in new CEO business plan for the Global Xpress I5 satellite constellation; and the creation and negotiation of the co-operation agreement with LightSquared on use of Inmarsatʼs spectrum over North America.

All three of these new initiatives have in some way or other created ripples of controversy in the maritime and wider satcoms community. The acquisition of Stratos was described by one particularly vocal critic of Inmarsat as a ʻspider devouring

its youngʼ. The commercial implications have undeniably caused much consternation among Inmarsatʼs other distribution partners, who argue it gives Stratos an unfair advantage in an already cut-throat market.

As regular readers will be well aware, the Global Xpress project, if it proceeds according to plan, has the potential to reshape the whole maritime satcoms eco-system, posing a particular threat to the market

for contemporary Ku-band VSAT solutions.

While outside the maritime realm, LightSquared ‒ a commercial venture to develop a nationwide 4G LTE wireless broadband communications network integrated with L-band satellite coverage across the United States ‒ has come under fire from parties closely involved in the delivery of satellite positioning services over fears it will interfere with the reception of GPS signals.

24-hour test-flight validates IPv6

Marlink donates kit to trainees

The signs are IPv6 will work on FleetBroadband and Inmarsatʼs other BGAN services, following successful trials carried out together with technology partner Thrane & Thrane.

IPv6 will supersede IPv4 as the underlying protocol by which data is sent around the Internet.

It will open up more address space for web sites and devices, which was running dangerously low on the legacy protocol. However, the switchover requires all kinds of networking infrastructure to be modified or upgraded.

The IPv6 over BGAN trial coincided with World IPv6 Day on 8 June. Thrane & Thrane used

Satcoms provider Marlink has donated one of its Sealink VSAT systems to the Norwegian maritime training vessel MS Gann,

an Explorer 500 terrestrial terminal to invoke IPv6 connections from Windows and Apple hardware via the BGAN network on to the public IPv6 Internet.

After the connection was established, it was used for HTTP web-browsing on number of specially set up test sites, from the likes of Google, Yahoo!, FaceBook and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the standards organisation responsible for creating the IPv6 protocol.

Inmarsat and Thrane & Thrane claim the 24-hour IPv6 ʻtest-flightʼ demonstrates BGANʼs compatibility with the new protocol.

APL rolls out video-on-demand training Singaporean containership operator APL Maritime is to commence rolling out a video-on-demand (VOD) service from VideoTel to deliver training to the crew working across its fleet.

Crews will be able to access courses, interactive computerbased training (CBT) and videos from multiple computers in multiple locations. The system, dubbed Network Video on Demand (NVOD), will allow multiple users to train at the same time on different subjects anywhere they can access the shipʼs network ‒ even on a per4

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sonal laptop in a cabin.

Videotel chief executive Nigel Cleave says NVOD is an innovative, modern, flexible and cost effective delivery mechanism: ʻIt is an ideal route upon which to deliver training to crew onboard as well as in marine colleges and training establishments.ʼ NVOD operates through a server that connects to the shipʼs existing onboard network. It provides simple to use training, regular updates, search functionality and enables straightforward viewing of personal information, crew

records and training activity.

All training records are recorded in a central database, Videotelʼs Onboard Training Manager Plus (OTM+), allowing easy back up, import and export to an onshore office. This can be done via the web interface of the companyʼs shore based Fleet Training Administrator.

VideoTel reports that APL Maritime operations managers were pleased by the seamless installation of NVOD and its ease of use, as well as the breadth of content and integration of training record keeping.

which prepares new school leavers for a career at sea. Sealink will provide Gann with multiple voice lines and always-on bandwidth enabling students and teachers to stay in touch via its web-based learning system.

Jostein Vik, electrician and teacher aboard the ships said: ʻPeople working in the global maritime sector now rely heavily upon connectivity for a range of applications from everyday email and voice calling, to technical functions such as transfer of operational data to offices ashore. It is also essential for us to expose our students to satcoms to create a realistic experience, which is vital to the success of the programme.ʼ Other educational and environmental projects supported

by Marlink include Project Kaisei and the Green Warriorsʼ Environmental Queen.

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NEWS

Hull strength calculator upgraded

T-minus two years for Alphasat

ClassNK has released v5.0 of its PrimeShip-HULL structural assessment software packages with new features for calculating the structural and direct strength requirements of tankers and bulk carriers.

This latest release reaches fruition as shipyards and designers are looking for ways to more easily address the design issues raised by new regulations, in particular IACSʼ Common Structural Rules (CSR).

The Japanese class societyʼs Toshiyuki Shigemi who oversaw the development of v5.0 notes that while CSR and other new regulations have helped usher in a new era of safer ships, calculating the requirements for structural members has become a more and more difficult process. ʻPrimeShip-HULL is specifically designed to meet that challenge. And v5.0 is without a doubt the most powerful and the most usable version ever developed,ʼ he says.

A Rules variant is honed for

While most eyes in the maritime satcoms industry are fixed on Global Xpress, Inmarsatʼs often overlooked Alphasat project is progressing apace.

The Alphasat I-XL satellite will supplement the operatorʼs current constellation of I4 satellites (used for FleetBroadband and other BGAN services) and, says the company, will enable a ʻnew generation of mobile communicationsʼ across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

A review of the project by the European Space Agency

performing structural evaluations using the scantling formulae defined in the IACS CSR. Version 5.0 is available in both tanker and bulk carrier flavours and boasts an improved user interface, which is said to make the calculation results easier to interpret.

Meanwhile a DSA variant ‒ for direct strength assessment calculations (as defined by CSR) ‒ automatic identifies structural members and compartments before carrying out a finite element analysis to complete the numbercrunching.

(ESA), the French space agency CNES, and Inmarsat has confirmed that all sub-systems of the spacecraftʼs service module and 11m-diameter reflector are ready for flight.

In light of this milestone, the London-based satcoms operator says it is on target to have the 6000kg spacecraft ready for a 2013 launch.

In addition to its communication hardware, Alphasat will carry a number of technology demonstrator projects on behalf of the ESA.

SharpEye radar inventor bestowed a royal award Barry Wade, director of surveillance systems at radar innovator Kelvin Hughes, has been honoured by the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) with the Duke of Edinburghʼs Navigation Award for Technical Achievement.

The award recognises Wadeʼs achievement in leading the design of the SharpEye marine radar. For over 60 years, commercial marine navigation radar transceivers employed a magnetron oscillator ‒ the same as found in microwave

cookers ‒ to generate the high power microwaves transmitted.

Kelvin Hughesʼ SharpEye system replaces the magnetron with solid-state technology, and brings benefits including enhanced performance and reliability.

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Transas supports ʻtrain the trainerʼ workshop In recent years considerable sums of money have been channelled into building laboratories and classrooms and installing simulators in order to foster the next generation of qualified seafarers.

But, the most important factor is still investment in ʻhuman capitalʼ, emphasises Selcuk Nas, deputy dean of the maritime faculty at Dokuz Eylul University in Turkey, who recently managed a ʻtrain-the-trainerʼ workshop held in cooperation with Transas Marine.

He continues: ʻHighly educated, skilled trainers are our most valuable resource. Therefore, it is essential our trainers have the latest knowledge in using simulation systems for both bridge and engine room operations.ʼ Over 20 lecturers from 12 colleges participated in the special training workshop, which cov-

MTN Satellite Communications (MTN) is celebrating its 30th year in the satcoms industry. Since its founding in 1981, the company has delivered numerous innovative solutions, initially for a broad mix of government and related user groups but later on also for the maritime sector.

It is fitting that on its founding the company built its 10,000 square foot teleport facility on Telegraph Hill in Holmdel, NJ, the same location where Marconi

ered the use of Navigational Simulators and Engine Room Simulators, as well as developments in ARPA radar and ECDIS, and wider innovations in the field of maritime training. ʻMany maritime colleges lack well-trained lecturers,ʼ commented

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attendee Ozge Bozacioglu, a lecturer from Ziya Kalkavan Anatolian Maritime High School. ʻIn that respect, this is a significant contribution to more efficient use of simulators by lecturers.ʼ

MTN celebrates 30 years sent the first transatlantic radio transmission.

Its first significant foray into the maritime sphere, albeit a naval application, was the delivery of the first stabilised, ʻtransmit and receiveʼ Ku-band satellite antenna system for the U.S. Navy deployed on the USS Iwojima during the first Persian Gulf crisis.

By the late 1980s, through a

New Imtech box entertains crew Imtech Marine is the latest systems integrator to introduce an IPTV-based crew entertainment system for the merchant marine market.

The systems consists of a streaming device that performs on-the-fly conversion of satellite TV broadcasts into an IP format and the Radio Holland IPTV server which delivers video and audio content from its hard discs to individual crew members, via a Linux-powered settop box.

Imtech has paid close attention to life aboard a modern ship. The system lets multiple

Trainers undergoing training

users to login to a single set-top box, so even when crew members are sharing a cabin, they can store playlists and settings in their own personal profile.

Further, the user-interface has support for multiple languages, reflecting the diverse and international make up of crews.

System administration is carried out, as would be expected, through a web interface. Fresh items of content can be uploaded either individually or in bulk. Moreover, Imtech is also offering a subscription service for 90 new movies to be delivered every three months.

joint venture with SeaTel, the MTN VSAT product was developed for a 6-month trial period on Norwegian Cruise Lineʼs MS Seaward ship and shortly after, for Carnival Cruise Line. The product, at the time, delivered a 64 Kbps duplex SCPC channel. It provided eight voice/fax lines at a speedy synchronous 9.6 Kbps data channel to connect the shipsʼ IBM AS-400 computers in real-time to corporate headquarters, which was never before possible. The success of these project trials marked the companyʼs entry into the maritime business.

During the 1990s, MTN introduced the first onboard Internet cafés for cruise ships leveraging VSAT technology.

Rather more recently, it launched the industryʼs first multichannel global television service, MTN Worldwide TV, to provide programming from BBC World News, CNBC, MSNBC, E! Entertainment Television, Fox News and Sky News. The company reports programming is now being delivered to more than 54 cruise ships in over 44,000 passenger cabins.

Blue Ocean Wireless reborn as OceanWide Stratos has purchased most of the operational assets of Blue Ocean Wireless (BOW), one of the pioneers of shipboard GSM connectivity.

Blue Oceanʼs innovative technology enabled crew to use their personal GSM phones to communicate with family and friends by voice and SMS. However, ever since its launch around five years ago, there was speculation that the companyʼs business model was not sufficiently robust.

For a while, it had the advantage of being ʻfirst on the blockʼ. It was also introduced in the midst of a industry-wide shortage of crew, which meant ship managers and operators were happy to invest in ‒ even subsidise ‒ such luxuries as they vied to attract the most qualified personnel.

However, such advantageous conditions could not last forever. As the once esoteric technology became more widespread and cheaper, numerous copy-cat services sprung up, often as an optional extra on the back of a complete ship satcoms solution.

Moreover, market forces have largely restored the supply/demand balance for crew.

Therefore trading conditions were becoming increasingly challenging for BOW. In September 2009, it entered a ʻcooperative distribution agreementʼ with Stratos. It seems the cooperative element has now come to and end.

As part of the acquisition, Stratos assumes responsibility for providing services to most of BOWʼs customers, including many large commercial shipping companies worldwide.

Since July 1, BOW customers have been receiving invoices directly from Stratos.

Stratos will continue to market and sell BOWʼs services, but under the new brand of GSM Oceanwide.

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DIVERSIONS

Enabled by the twoway interactivity that is the hallmark of the Web 2.0 revolution, crowd-sourcing has radically altered the way in which large quantities of data can be collated or processed, by contributors from all over the world. For the uninitiated, crowd-sourcing refers to drawing on the power of mass collaboration. The most well-known and successful example is, of course, Wikipedia.

Yet, surprisingly, crowd-soucring was happening long before the inventors of the modern day Internet were even born. And interestingly, one of the earliest applications of this social-web phenomenon has a distinctly maritime flavour to it: tides.

For Victorian sailors figuring out the timing and height of tides was a life or death problem. Getting it wrong would mean a slipped schedule at best or a shipwreck at worst. At the time, the only people who could observe and accurately predict the tides were harbourmasters.

Realising the value of their ‘data’, they tended to keep their information as a closely guarded secrets. It is said that in UK captains of the Royal Navy had to pay bribes to get access to the information they needed to dock their vessels.

It’s true that there were the Holden’s tide tables for Liverpool, and a few others, but there was no attempt to publish these more widely. According to Laura J Sny-

der, author of The Philosophical Breakfast Club, in London, tides were becoming more and more unpredictable with all the construction along the Thames.

She writes: ‘In one notable incident, the tides flowed over the Blackfriars Bridge in December 1814, flooding Windsor Park and inundating warehouses and businesses nearby. Yet, oddly, given the importance of water to Britain, knowledge of the tides was still scanty. Two centuries before, Francis Bacon had suggested an international system of tidal observations to remedy the situation, yet his call had gone unheeded.’

The Philosophical Breakfast Club recounts the life and work of four men who met as students at Cambridge University: Charles Babbage, John Herschel, William Whewell, and Richard Jones.

Recognising their shared love of science (as well as good food and drink) they began to meet on Sunday mornings to talk about the state of science in Britain and the world at large. Inspired by Francis Bacon, these members of the Philosophical Breakfast Club plotted to bring about a new scientific revolution.

Whewell wanted to study tides on a global level. Collecting data from local tide tables (where they were available) would have been impractical and costly, and he needed tide data from outside ports as well.

His solution was ‘crowdsourcing’. He arranged for hun-

Victorian mariners had to navigate artificially imposed barriers on tidal data

dreds of volunteers around the world to measure their local sea levels and send the numbers back to him.

At the end of it he had over 40,000 data points that were ‘reduced’ by ‘computers,’ that is the people who did calculations in the days before machines which ended up with that name. He then plotted the times of the tidal maximums on a map to create a data visualisation called a co-tidal chart. In a sense he can be seen as an innovator in international scientific research, because he (and Beaufort) got numerous countries involved.

It was not until the 19th century that the harbourmasters’ grip on the data was truly broken through and effort to publish tide tables systematically (and this is when the government got involved, via the Chief Hydrographer Francis Beaufort – inventor of the Beaufort Scale, supporter of Darwin’s position on the HMS Beagle, and friend of William Whewell and John Herschel).

This story goes to demonstrate how open data can be employed to good effect in real world applications. Moreover, it shows how a public uprising contributed ultimately to the downfall of the harbourmasters, data producers clinging to a business model that excluded many potential users because the transaction costs were kept artificially high - a situation that might sound all too familiar to contemporary navigators.

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AIS

AIS 2.0 glimmers on the horizon While AIS was originally created as a collision avoidance tool for large merchant vessels, like many successful technologies, usage has expanded to include a much broader category of users, from fishing boats and coastal vessels to inland waterway vessels. Indeed, some countries are expected to mandate AIS for recreational vessels as well. But this increased scope of application also brings with it new challenges.

Explains Gunnar Mangs of vice president of Saab TransponderTech: ‘The radio channels only have so much capacity.

With too many users, for example in a congested waterway, they can become saturated. Of course AIS has a certain degree of in-built resiliency. As a coping strategy, the system can self adjust by reusing time slots occupied by more distant ships.

However, this results in the size of individual communication cells shrinking.’

Distant problem This does not present a problem on the bridge, as ultimately it is the nearest ships that are of greatest interest to officers. The problem is harder for shorebased government agencies to tackle, since more distance ships will be less easy to track from coastal stations.

One solution, now used in Germany is to use several directional receiving antennas and divide the incoming data flow into smaller parts, thereby reducing the risk of transmissions becoming garbled.

‘Moving part of the signal traffic to other frequencies is a 8

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By drawing on innovation in the mobile phone industry, software defined radio (SDR) will make performing upgrades to AIS easier and pave the way for AIS 2.0

possible solution in local areas.

But this must to be done with great care and coordination, so that ship-to-ship communication is maintained for all participants.’

Saab TransponderTech’s involvement with AIS dates as far back as the technology itself. Its first foray was back in the 1990s developing transponders primarily intended for aviation applications, but this work laid the foundation for a ‘marinised’ version just at the time as IMO was in the process of formulating standards. These efforts culminated around 2000 when the company launched its first marine transponder: the R3.

Standard design After standards were published in early 2002, it went on to become one of the most widely used designs in the maritime industry.

Falling market prices spurred Saab TransponderTech on to develop a more efficient design, resulting in the R4. This variant included a substantial amount of digital signal processing (DSP) which apart from reducing cost,

made it possible to control and define by software means the characteristics of the radio channels. One application where this facility has been used is in providing AIS encryption.

Saab TransponderTech hopes that it’s newly announced fifth-generation products will be able to cope with the growing burden placed on AIS. ‘The new R5 products are our first to incorporate software-defined radio (SDR) transceivers together with newly developed high-speed analogue-to-digital converters,’ said Mangs. ‘The result is a dramatic improvement in receiver sensitivity, stability and signal processing.’

Signal chopping The A/D converters ‘chop-up’ the entire incoming analogue signal making it immediately available for digital manipulation.

Doing this number crunching in real-time requires fast and powerful processors. But the latest crop of hardware components allows multiple frequencies to be processed in parallel, which, says Mangs, opens the door to some very flexible products.

‘Component technology in this area is driven by the mobile phone industry. There are a multitude of different standards in the mobile eco-system these days, from 2G GPRS to 3G EDGE and even 4G LTE. And it is up to vendors of base stations to make sure their equipment can handle whatever signal is thrown at it.

The emergence of low-cost 4G pico-base stations has been a particularly welcome development for us.’

In addition to VHF ship-toship and shore-to-ship AIS mes-

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AIS

SRT launches new, more compact family

sages, the R5 will also be able to process DGPS beacon signals and future satellite AIS messages and e-navigation radio channels.

Satellite challenges For example, one way of improving the effectiveness of satellite AIS would be to use shorter messages (to reduce probability of garbling) on dedicated frequencies (to eliminate background noise). To do this in analogue would require additional components, resulting in added complexity and cost.

With SDR, on the other hand, the same effect could be achieved by inserting new software. Likewise, the R5 transponder could be re-programmed should e-navigation require additional communication capacity.

Of course, what the R5 does not do is set the relevant protocols and rules that will be required to ensure everyone is speaking the same language. But once standards have been agreed, rolling out the changes should be quite straightforward, as all that is required is a firmware upgrade.

AIS 2.0 ready In this respect, this fifth generation hardware will help overcome existing challenges, such as the aforementioned signal saturation in crowded waters (which is especially an issue in growing markets such as China and Singapore)..

Saab TransponderTech’s technical director Peter Bergljung notes that in the long run a new AIS system with new waveforms, more bandwidth, new frequencies, enhanced protocols and security is needed: ‘Discussions surrounding AIS 2.0 are already underway, but it is still early days. No formal standardisation has commenced at the moment.’

But when it does eventually arrive, he believes SDR will be vital for both cost and legacy reasons. A new AIS 2.0 box, he says, will most probably have to run both existing AIS and AIS 2.0 technology. ‘In this respect, SDR will be a key enabler.’

AFTER A two year gestation, SRT Marine Technology has completed revamped the core technology on which their range of AIS transponders operate. The new software-defined radio (SDR) platform capitalises on the latest in radio communications technologies and also incorporates a number of patent pending innovations.

Practically speaking, SDR allows AIS devices to be physically much more compact, which also pays dividends in terms of cost and power consumption. SDR also provides more flexibility for adding new functionalities than previously possibly. The first device to roll off the production line is the Cobalt AIS Class B transponder.

Despite being smaller than a standard credit card (which SRT claims makes it the worldʼs smallest Class B unit to date), at its core the Cobalt has a feature rich engine that supports both the CSTDMA and pending SOTDMA IMO Class B standards; SD and SIM cards; and device multiplexing.

Cobalt incorporates SRTʼs unique Rmax technology which was engineered to increase the maximum range and message decoding performance, thus ensuring total AIS domain awareness even in busy areas.

SRT chief executive Simon Tucker says that developing an SDR platform was not plain-sailing: ʻWe have been at the forefront of AIS for over ten years. We probably have one of the worldʼs leading radio communications engineering development teams, yet we have deployed all this talent in a concentrated and focused fashion for nearly two years to create these new technologies.ʼ SRT plans to roll out the new SDR platform in a range of AIS devices, including Class A and B transponders, dual channel receivers, antenna splitter, search and rescue transponders and man overboard systems, as well as options for aids to navigation (AtoNs) and an altogether new device christened the Identifier.

Looking at some of these in more detail, the new Class A scheduled for launch in 2012, will include a colour screen, full charting capability and thanks to SDR an almost limitless range of frequency and channel configurations. SRT states the device will be smaller and cheaper than the current Class A, launched in May 2010 but recently upgraded with encryption for use by marine authorities, coast guards and navies.

The Identifier beacon enables any vessel to fit an AIS beacon for safety and security purposes. It contains a lithium ion battery and will operate for up to week between charges.

AtoNs are an increasingly important element to any serious AIS system and are gradually being installed worldwide. They provide extended network coverage and important maritime domain information to mariners such as temperature, wind, tides, sea state etc.

The whole family has been upgraded to SDR architecture

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Sea Sea TV The need for surveillance of the high seas was sparked by a spate of high profile tanker accidents in European waters in the early 1990s, the most symbolic being the Erika.

At the time, key attractions of satellite surveillance were its extended range and the fact it does not require cooperation from the target. But even in these early days it was recognised that gaining the maximum advantage from these new resources was dependent on the received data being ‘actionable’, ie capable of being downloaded and processed in a reasonable amount of time.

The Erika set into motion a series of events that eventually led to the formation of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) in 2002, and later SafeSeaNet (SSN). SSN acts as a conduit collecting data from 727 AIS shore stations from individual European nations for redistribution to other EU member states.

Before SSN it was hard for maritime authorities to ascertain what ships were carrying what cargo over what national boundaries. This state of affairs would hamper any post-incident emergency response.

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Governments are eager to ʻblendʼ satellite AIS with other surveillance data in order to gain a better picture of whatʼs happening on the high seas, but would greater coordination deliver better results?

Lean and mean CleanSeaNet (CSN) is the second tool in EMSA’s surveillance toolbox. Based on three radar satellites, which together acquire around 2000 images annually (or about 40 each week), it can be described as a classical earth observation system. After being downloaded, images are analysed by a human operator and then delivered to the enduser within 30 minutes. With such a quick turnaround, EMSA’s Leendert Bal was not exaggerating when he described the service as ‘lean and mean’, while speaking at the Collaboration in Space for International Global Maritime Awareness (C-SIGMA) workshop held at ESA’s Earth Observation Centre (ESRIN) in Frascati, Italy in June.

LRIT – Long Range Identification & Tracking – differs from SSN and CSN in that individual Flag States are required to track ships registered under their flag irrespective of location, rather than keeping watch on all vessel traffic navigating through their waters. This back-to-front approach requires Flag States to exchange the data they hold if they want to use LRIT track reports to coalesce a picture of vessel traffic for a specific geographical region.

For around two years now, LRIT has been leveraged to good effect by EUNAVFOR as an information tool in its anti-piracy operations. Naval vessels participating in EUNAVFOR – or Operation Atalanta as it is now called – are alerted whenever a legitimate merchant ship enters the piracy danger zone.

The fact that LRIT data is not published into the public domain means it neatly fills the gap left by the recommended AIS blackout policy, whereby ships traversing the Gulf of Aden and other known risky waters are advised to switch off AIS to avoid becoming prey to pirates. The openness of AIS is both a strength and weakness. Further, the fact that LRIT can provide this secure channel should en-

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sure its survival despite the encroachment of AIS as a global means of tracking vessels.

White picture Bal reports that EU NAVFOR has also been experimenting with optical satellite reconnaissance.

These tests paved the way for the introduction of a unified data service, referred to as the ‘white picture’, which blends intelligence from multiple sources and derives risk indicators. The service is pretty much ‘real-time’ in that information is updated at 15min intervals. Bal believes that ‘white picture’ offers a first real glimpse of what can be achieved by combining different datasets.

Returning to safer European waters, EMSA is currently examining the possibilities offered by S-AIS and in July started drawing down data from the Norwegian AISsat project. While positive about S-AIS, he remains realistic.

In his view a constellation of a dozen such satellites would be needed to deliver optimal coverage, but that is not likely to happen in the prevailing financial climate.

What S-AIS data it can obtain will eventually feed into IMDatE – the organisation’s Integrated Maritime Data Environment – a system currently under development that will pull together data streams from SSN, CSN, LRIT and THETIS (for port state control) as well as conventional radar and vessel traffic monitoring systems.

Bal mentions that EMSA is does not utilise commercially available AIS data, because it is not ‘clean’ enough. Such is the organisation’s reliance on AIS, it has set up its own database to fill in the missing or incorrect details in incoming track reports.

Meanwhile on the opposite side of the globe, Australia is

markedly more enthusiastic about what S-AIS could deliver.

Most of this comes down to geography: the country’s maritime domain accounts for 10% of the Earth’s surface. Its region of SAR responsibility measures some 4.5 million km2.

The nation faces a diverse range of threats and challenges in the maritime environment, from illegal immigration (particularly to the north), illegal fishing (to the south); pollution prevention (to the east) and piracy. Yet it only has limited resources to monitor and tackle these issues.

Moreover, though Australian government agencies have invested in capabilities to gather, analyse and assess maritime security data, lack of collaboration prevented access to a holistic view of the country’s maritime domain. Information collected by individual agencies typically provided only partial visibility, and focused on the dominant purpose for which the information was collected.

Tunnel vision This ‘tunnel vision’ curtailed the government’s understanding of maritime threats and the range of response options available to deal with them. It resulted in many thousands of vessels operating in Australian waters with anonymity; inefficient use of resources in performing threat analysis and profiling based on incomplete and inaccurate data; and suboptimal prioritisation of surveillance and response assets.

To overcome these problems, it has gone down the same road as the EU and built AMIS – the Australian Maritime Identification System – to bring together under one roof data that has until now resided in disparate

Some 80 delegates descended on ESAʼs Earth Observation Centre (ESRIN) in Frascati, Italy to discuss the future of maritime surveillance

systems, including geo-spatial data. AMIS is just entering service and the hope is it will provide a much higher resolution picture of the maritime domain.

The role of S-AIS, according Jason Jarett of Australia’s Customs and Borders Protection Agency, will depend on how the technology evolves. For example, if the data is to be used in legal prosecutions, it will have to be well-recorded, clean and verifiably non-tampered.

But the bigger concern in the short-term is satellite availability.

S-AIS performance – and for that matter other forms of surveillance from upon high – is a function of the number of satellites, their orbits and capability, and the nature of the targets. Tracking data is inherently time-sensitive: a report stating a ship ship’s position six hours previously is of considerably less value than one arriving 30 minutes after the fact.

So latency needs to be addressed.

When, in 2010, Australian SAR was able to come to the rescue of a stricken yacht thanks to S-AIS data from an OrbComm satellite, this was arguably down to good luck. The satellite happened to be passing almost immediately overhead at the time.

It happened to be close to an Earth station to transmit its data down with minimal delay.

Meanwhile the major driver for increased maritime domain awareness in the High North is tourism. Cruise ships are encroaching on ever higher latitudes. Around 150 ships now traverse the waters each summer, which is creating a headache for the Norwegian authorities. While there have been no major disasters so far, the safety risks cannot be ignored, particularly in light of the extended response times needed to reach a stricken vessel in the event of an incident.

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BarentsWatch To this end, the Norwegian government is pushing forward a new surveillance network – under the working title of BarentsWatch – as part of its High North Strategy. The objectives are similar to Australia’s AMIS and the EU’s IMDatE: to bring together existing sources of information that have to date been dispersed across different systems. BarentsWatch is set to open for pilot testing in January 2012 and if all goes to plan go live that May. MITE understands that BarentsWatch will pull data from AISsat1 and its forthcoming progeny AISsat2 and AISsat3. Functioning as a technology demonstrator, AISsat1 was put in to orbit for less than €4M by a consortium comprising Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, Kongsberg Seatex, the Norwegian Coastal Administration and the Norwegian Space Centre.

Earlier this year, it was made available to the Japanese authorities to support the SAR operations after the tsunami in March 2011. Construction of its successor AISsat2 is well underway, with a launch date set for next autumn. Indeed, work has already started on AISsat3, which will ‘bigger and better’, thanks to a more powerful AIS receiver.

Regional interference By the end of 2012, it is estimated there will around 40 AIS receiver satellites in orbit. While the sophistication of satellitebased AIS data collection has advanced considerably in the last few years, there are geographical regions where it cannot perform well. exactEarth’s John Allan cites the Mediterranean Sea and the Baltic Sea as two examples.

In the former, the problem is caused by interference from land-based systems, while in the latter case disruption is caused

by certain military installations.

In terms of maritime surveillance, the irony about AIS is that it is primarily tracking the ‘good guys’, ie those vessels which are simply going about their business of legitimately transporting cargo from one part of the world to another. The reason for maritime authorities wanting this data is that observing and understanding normal patterns of activity can make it easier to identify abnormal activity, potentially linked to illegal activities.

But the intelligence that can be gathered from AIS data, whether collected from Earth orbit or land installations, is of limited value by itself. Pirate skiffs or small wooden canoes or craft carrying illegal immigrants, for instance, are hardly going to be transmitting their position for the authorities to detect them. So to gain a complete picture requires blending AIS with data

ECDIS Doctor For vessel operators, one of the most important factors to consider when looking at their ECDIS equipment is the quality of the data within it. They need to be sure that they are sailing with the most accurate, up-to-date information available and that should their operational requirements change suddenly, their data can be easily updated to reflect the change.

ECDISPLUS from Kelvin Hughes allows every fleet to operate using only the most up-to-date chart information and data available, thanks to a unique relationship with ChartCo, the worldʼs leading broadcast provider of data to ships at sea. It also ensures that operators do not buy data that they donʼt need and that when routes change, the holdings on board ship are seamlessly updated.

ECDISPLUS includes Notices to Mariners, tracings and publication updates delivered in both digital and paper formats utilising the widest range of delivery methods available, including: satellite broadcast; email/internet delivery; and secure delivery on a weekly basis direct to ship or to local shore-based distribution offices.

With ECDISPLUS, you can be assured of the latest ECDIS equipment, cost effective supply and management of charts, real-time updates and IMO-approved ECDIS training. All of this comes with total flexibility to choose your provider, worldwide installation and an unrivalled global support network.

To find out more, go to: www.ecdisplus.com

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garnered from other sources, for example synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images.

While this sounds simple in theory, in practice it is less straightforward. exactEarth, among others, has experimented with blending SAR images and AIS track reports but with limited success. It is here that the poor refresh rates from existing AIS satellites become all too evident. The delay incurred in obtaining AIS data was too long to allow any thing close to real-time interpolation.

Refreshments needed There are two ways by which this problem can be tackled.

The first is to increase the refresh rate by having more AIS satellites in orbit. Indeed, most players in the business are planning to expand their constellations. The second option is to fit an AIS receiver as a secondary payload on the imagery satel-

lite, and the indications are this too will happen.

One might conjecture this latter approach jeopardising the future of S-AIS only satellites, but this is unlikely to be the case.

SAR satellites are few in number and typically have to be programmed for specific missions; they are not recording continually. Therefore, there should still be room for a constellation of lightweight AIS detection satellites collecting and beaming back to Earth data on a rolling basis.

However, whether or not there is room – or need - for multiple S-AIS constellations is an altogether different question.

Today numerous commercial entities and government-backed research organisations have launched satellites of varying degrees of sophistication. Maintaining the existing fleet and expanding it further is an expensive business, which ultimately someone must pay. And creating

a workable business model is probably as much a challenge as finessing the technology that makes the satellites perform as they should.

Moreover, despite a consensus on the need for more satellites in order to reduce refresh times and improve data quality, there appears to be a surprising lack of coordination between existing providers both commercial and governmental. If, by the end of 2012 there are 40 AIS satellites in the sky, why is it their data cannot be pooled together?

Again, this is probably not a technological issue but a problem of motivation. As has been explained, the key to successful maritime domain awareness and intelligence gathering is ‘joining the dots’ to sift information from the data. It is therefore disappointing that that mantra is not applied to the ‘dots’ seen trailing across the sky above the oceans each night.

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Digging AIS data for gold When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he envisaged it as a device for piping music to private homes – an early 20th century equivalent of Spotify’s streaming service, if you will. But when people were presented with the new-fangled gadget, they found a much more powerful application: one-to-one remote voice communication.

Similar anecdotes litter the road of technological innovation.

And, it seems history is once again about to repeat itself: with the additional range facilitated by satellite receivers, AIS is being repurposed from its intended vessel collision avoidance role to a host of applications.

The security value is well recognised, as demonstrated by the enthusiasm shown by national regulatory bodies clamouring to get their hands on S-AIS data. (Though it is ironic Masters are advised to shut down the AIS transponders on the vessels’ in their charge when passing through pirate ridden 14

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AIS data can be sifted to find ships that are on empty legs in order to obtain the lowest cost for the broker, or trying to avoid demurrage charges

waters). There is also the environmental protection dimension, arguably a spin-off from the security function, whereby AIS tracks are employed to trace maritime polluters.

Deeper trends But regulators are not the only people interested in AIS data.

Charterers and schedulers are eager to harness AIS data to find ships that are on empty legs in order to obtain the lowest cost for the broker, or trying to avoid

demurrage charges.

Meanwhile analysts and traders are seeking deeper insight. For example, to detect trends in month-by-month data on the proportion of ships travelling in certain directions on key trading routes; or to correlate the speed of ships going into port against the local price of the commodity they are carrying.

In the latter case, if a ship is travelling faster than its optimum speed (for low fuel consumption), there must be another commercial impetus, and most likely it relates to the potential price of their cargo. In essence they want to extract the macro-economic value hidden in ship movements.

The first wave of applications aimed at mining commercial value from AIS data emerged in the late-90s soon after IMO made AIS transponders mandatory on SOLAS ships. Most of these were limited to a ‘where-is-my-ship’ functionality. But the analysts at one trading firm realised that much more was possible. Such was their belief in the idea, that

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they left their trading desks and set about creating a new generation tools. In 2008, they formed an independent software company called Commodity Flow.

Chief executive John Paskin explains the company’s motivation: ‘The ‘where-is-my-ship’ products that were all the rage a decade ago have passed their best-before date. Traders and analysts are interested in the bigger picture. The techniques needed to deliver this picture have come along in leaps and bounds – already we can provide a good indication of trade in a certain commodity or at a certain port.’

Higher resolution But he accepts there is still plenty of scope for fine-tuning – to increase the resolution of that picture as it were. That said, in Paskin’s view, the commercial intelligence that can be derived from blending geographic data with historical trends has been woefully underestimated: ‘The market is largely untapped. Whether by design or just not joining the dots, leading business data providers have been blind to the potential in, say, calculating how much LNG there is on the water, instead of displaying an eyecandy graphic showing where LNG carriers are at any given moment in time.’

From a technical perspective, coding a ‘where-is-my-ship’ application does not present many challenges. It basically involves taking a real-time AIS dataset, extracting the long/lat values (and possibly a few other fields) and exporting them in KML format, so they can be overlaid on to GoogleEarth or similar. Building an application capable of extracting commercial intelligence is rather more involved.

To do this, Commodity Flow has split the world into a patchwork of around 10 000 zones, which primarily represent different jetties and ports. It has analysed some 200 million rows of vessel movement history to work out the expected pattern of activity in each zone. Geo-spatial

software capable of processing and manipulating such large quantities of data is not yet widely available. Though there are some sophisticated products are on the market, they are typically geared towards smaller datasets. As a result, Commodity Flow has had to adapt and come up with its own number-crunching tools.

Early adopter For Commodity Flow, S-AIS is old-hat. The company has been exploiting data collected from space since its inception, having worked with data from Orbcomm, Luxspace and SpaceQuest. Even though S-AIS has its limitations, Commodity Flow didn’t really have the option not to use it.

‘It’s a necessity,’ says Paskin.

‘Ultimately the traders and charterers use our data to place bets, and these bets involve significant amounts of money. It’s understandable why they are not going to take risks based on one set of data if they know there’s a better, higher quality set available. Of course, before S-AIS, they were quite happy to gamble away based on the intelligence derived from coastal-only data. But now S-AIS has entered the equation, it is indispensable.’

While the data S-AIS provides is still patchy, it has opened the door to possibility that simply would not be feasible with terrestrial infrastructure. Paskin gives the example of a client who wants to compare the speed of vessels crossing the Atlantic from east-to-west and west-to-east.

Such a request could not be contemplated under the limited range of coastal AIS stations.

Fulfilling it requires satellite data.

The other advantage of satellite, is that none of the current AIS vendors have receivers in every port. There is a reasonable splattering, but not enough. For example, in certain areas, like Indonesia, the number of receivers is low. But if you’re interested in LNG or coal, you need to see what is happening there.

So satellite offers the best available view, even if it still has shortcomings.

Pattern recognition Commodity Flow is paying increasing attention to analysing commodity fixtures and freight rates. Paskin says the company can comfortably track and record around 70% of oil fixtures. More ingenious are the steps it’s taking to identify the freight ships are carrying. ‘Because we track vessel movements down to the jetty level, we can start to explore and figure out individual cargos. For example, if a vessel track emanates from one of the two coal jetties in Newcastle, Australia, you know with a pretty high degree of certainty that it is going to be laden with coal.’

However the process is not always this simple: ‘For jetties capable of delivering a number of different products, the analytical methods become more involved.

But, in essence, it comes down to building up a map of the ship’s movements before and after the cargo is loaded. From these patterns, it becomes possible to narrow down what it is likely to be carrying.’

While this might sound all very good in theory, actually putting it into practice entailed considerable efforts. ‘It’s taken considerable time to create the geographical models that underpin the concept. And as with all models, we are benchmarking it against real data from one of our partners, so that we can continually assessing and fine-tune it,’ explains Paskin. This iterative benchmarking process appears to paying dividends. When Commodity Flow started the project, the derived data was around 80% correct. Today, Paskin says, the accuracy is closer to 95%.

Though the exponential curve of improvements gained from fine-tuning so far will probably be subject to diminishing returns, this might well be compensated by better quality source data flowing in from the next-generation of S-AIS satellites currently on the drawing board.

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Dusting for fingerprints Data cleanliness is a recognised challenge in getting the most from any AIS data.

Even with transmissions picked up by coastal stations, a fair share – possibly up to 20% – of incoming data is received in an unclean state with incorrect, garbled or missing data. Furthermore, on its own the MMSI code sent by AIS transponders and included in all types of AIS messages does not function as a reliable unique identifier – or ‘fingerprint’ – in the way that a vessel’s IMO number does.

To address this IHS-Fairplay has created a business in operating a cleansing service. The company has over 188,000 vessels on its database, including not just those in service, but also newbuilds and scrapped or ‘dead’ ships. Keeping the records of ‘dead’ ships provides an extra tool in sifting erroneous data.

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Raw AIS data ‒ especially data collected by satellite ‒ is prone to corruption, so detective work is required to get it into a usable format erences MMSI numbers to IMO numbers.

Cross-referencing AIS messages contain both dynamic data such as position, course and speed and static data such as vessel name, call sign, IMO number, destination and ETA. You may, at this point, be wondering why - if the AIS message contains a field for the IMO number - is it necessary for a company like IHS-Fairplay to provide a cross-referencing service. The answers lies in the way AIS messages are broadcast across the airwaves: the dynamic and static data are sent separately.

In the case of vessels operating Class-A AIS transceivers these two messages are known as message ID 1 and message ID 5. Dynamic data (ID 1) is broadcast every 2- 10 seconds when underway, and every three minutes at anchor, while static data (ID 5) is broadcast only every 6 minutes. The sole link between the two segments is the MMSI. This means that there are always far more dynamic data transmitted from a ship than static, and the full ships details can only be obtained from having recent examples of both. In practice this is usually not a problem for vessels within terrestrial AIS coverage as they should be in contact for at least six minutes enabling both type of message to be read.

With satellite AIS, however, the speed of the individual satellite over the ground and the size of the footprint means that while the

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Governments put faith in S-AIS dynamic information will be broadcast several times while in range, at best there may be only one chance to pick up the static data message in each orbit. For this and other reasons satellite AIS often has dynamic data messages only, or very few static messages.

There are therefore two reasons why we cannot trust the raw messages 100% for proof of identity: 1) The MMSI number linking dynamic to static data is liable to error; and 2) The static data message containing the IMO number, call sign, vessel name and flag may be missing, or, due to corruption, not even for the same vessel.

The dynamic elements such as longitude, latitude and speed are usually automatically populated, and therefore pretty much immune to human errors or tampering, although the nav-aids used can and do fail or get switched off.

Arousing suspicion It is up to crew however to manually input and maintain the static fields such as the vessel’s next port of call and it is here that most problems occur. Many of the errors here come down to simple poor data entry/mis-keying, spelling mistakes or nonstandard/local names and failures to maintain data up to date. On the lighter side IHS has, in the past, picked up ‘home sweet home’ or ‘to my wife’ as listed destinations.

More serious however was the case of a large LNG tanker running for several months in and out of US waters showing the vessel type as ‘wing in ground effect craft’, which while exotic in the wild is a common default setting for new transponders. On another occasion Caribbean authorities identified vessels illegally anchoring in a marine nature reserve, but deliberately leaving the AIS transponder set to show ‘underway using engine’ in an attempt to avoid detection.

The most common discrepancy occurs when two vessels use the same MMSI (usually by error) which, if undetected, can lead to

EXACTEARTH HAS taken multiple orders for its satellite-based AIS tracking and monitoring ‒ exactAIS ‒ from governmental agencies in South Africa and Japan, among others. The orders, worth in excess of CDN $2 million over the next 12 months, suggest that their appetite for the enhanced ʻmaritime domain awarenessʼ that satellite-based tracking offers outweighs any lingering concerns about the technology not yet being fully proven.

As might be expected, president of the Ontario, Canada-based technology start-up Peter Mabson is rather pleased that interest in the system has translated into orders, especially at such an early stage in the deployment of its exactView constellation.

In connection, the company reports that the setup and configuration of its recently launched exactView2 payload is proceeding well and should become fully operational on schedule.

The payload was designed and built by exactEarthʼs parent company, Com Dev, and piggybacked onto the Indian Space Research Organisationʼs (ISRO) ResourceSat-2 earth observation satellite, launched in April.

In early tests, the exactView2 is said to have demonstrated ʻvery goodʼ vessel detection rates in even the high-density shipping areas of the world.

Mabson states it is the most advanced satellite-based AIS receiver ever built: ʻWe expect it to generate more than a million AIS messages per day, utilising our ground-based message processing technology, as it orbits the globe every 90 minutes.ʼ exactEarth plans to add a further three exactView spacecraft to its constellation later this year, at which time Mabson believes the service will have become a critical component of any wide area maritime reporting and surveillance requirement.

the ships plotted positions leaping thousands of miles in a matter of minutes, and subsequently creating a record of erroneous movements and port callings.

But even this data can be valuable to certain organisations.

IHS supplies data to national security bodies such as NATO, which are actually interested in these ‘odd’ destinations, as they might signal something untoward.

However in most applications, such raw data is not very helpful. For this reason, incoming data is validated on numeric variables such as call-signs and designated flag. If a discrepancy is discovered, it is flagged for further investigation.

Spelling mistooks Notably a vessel’s name is also a non-fixed field, in order to cater for periodic name changes. Again as there is no enforceable format for this field it is open to abuse and/or can be a cause of confusion. For example, some nations have a tendency to prefix the vessel’s name with M/S or M/C etc, additions which do not tally with the registration documents. Likewise transliterations from languages such as Chinese to English may be subject to variations hence both ‘hai xun’ and ‘haixun’ meaning ‘maritime patrol’ can be seen in messages.

In its detective work, IHS sometimes takes a backwards strategy: it can use other details, such as registered tonnage, dwt, IMO number (when available), and call sign to detect legitimate name, flag and ownership changes in advance of official notification arriving from the flagstate or owners.

Once the IMO number has been ascertained beyond a certain confidence threshold, IHS can then correlate information from its other databases, including ownership details, outcomes from recent port-state control inspections or defects. Such profiling however depends on having a high degree of confidence in correctly identifying a ship in the first place.

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MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Fuel benchmarks available online Emerging from the labs at DNV Petroleum Services’, Fuel Insight is designed to providing real-time information on bunker fuel deliveries around the world as an aid for effective procurement and benchmarking.

Launched at Norshipping 2011, the subscription-based web application taps into DNVPS’ ‘live’ bunker quality database – claimed to be the most extensive in the shipping industry. It distils complex data on fuel prices, ISO 8217 fuel specification parameters and regulatory compliance into easily digested benchmarks for supplier evaluation and purchase decision-making, helping ship charterers, operators and owners optimise costs and reduce risks.

Because bunkers make up a large fraction of a vessel’s operational costs, many shipping companies are facing considerable pressure as fuel prices continue to soar. Moreover, volatile fuel quality trends, supply chain developments and increasingly stricter environmental regulations are also complicating the fuel management function.

‘The launch of Fuel Insight is therefore a very timely one’, says DNVPS’ managing director Tore Morten Wetterhus. ‘With today’s high prices, getting the best value in fuel purchases is more essential than ever. Fuel Insight can help bunker buyers and fleet operators decide on sources that yield optimum value, based on the test results of delivered bunkers captured in our database.’

Fuel Insight further benchmarks various bunker performance indicators of individual vessels and fleets against indus18

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A new online data analytics tool will, according to its creators, help ensure shipping companies get the best deal for their bunker purchases

try averages. Wetterhus believes that by integrating this data analytics tool into their overall fuel management process, ship operators may identify significant improvement opportunities that translate to substantial cost savings. ‘Bunker traders, brokers and suppliers could adopt the service as an additional quality control tool to monitor their own products,’ he adds. Fuel Insight has five main functions: Price Correction Calculator estimates the corrected bunker prices quoted by suppliers, taking into account their historical fuel delivery performances in density deviations (values reported in Bunker Delivery Notes as compared to tested results), sediment content and fuel energy. The energy component is included by comparing the energy content of delivered bunkers to the global energy average for the fuel grade concerned. From the calculated price correction, a financial loss or gain (in US dollars) and a quantity loss or gain (in metric tonnes) are instantly listed to give an easy to read benchmark.

Reporting Benchmark compares the selected supplier’s Bunker Delivery Note values for density, sulphur and viscosity against lab-tested results.

Statutory Benchmark evaluates the compliance record

of the selected supplier’s deliveries in relation to sulphur and flashpoint regulatory requirements.

Financial Benchmark is similar to the Price Correction Calculator, except that the reporting is on a 0-100 scale, instead of US dollars or metric tonnes.

Technical Benchmark analyses the technical quality of the selected supplier’s products by evaluating critical ISO 8217 bunker quality parameters weighted according to their levels of importance.

The score for each of the four benchmarks ranges from 0 (worst) to 100 (best). When appraising the overall performance of the selected supplier according to these benchmarks, Fuel Insight users can assign different weights (low, medium or high) to each, or exclude any of the benchmarks.

BIMCO members who are frequent users of DNVPS services will be provided with complimentary access to designated parts of the Fuel Insight application. According to BIMCO Deputy Secretary-General Lars Robert Pedersen: ‘BIMCO has a vested interest in supporting a wide range of technical solutions that enable our members to live up to their present and future obligations on shipboard emissions.’

Senior Marine Technical Officer Peter L. Rasmussen continues, ‘BIMCO has been sparring with the dedicated DNVPS team on the setting up of Fuel Insight, and a range of selected BIMCO Owner Members who are also DNVPS clients have been involved in testing the application.’

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AMOS Mobile promises to simplify the process of performing inventory control and readings of counters and gauges

AMOS goes mobile The last decade is littered with attempts to automate equipment inspections. Arguably, these systems were ahead of their time and, as a result, hampered by insufficiently powerful hardware and, more importantly, by weak back-end software or poor interfaces to better established maintenance management applications. Moreover, shipowners have a reputation for being ‘late adopters’ of new technology, especially when current systems or processes aren’t broken and don’t need fixing.

It is against this backdrop that SpecTec has taken the wraps off a new product within its AMOS Business Suite: a handheld device and software combination providing the ability to record transactions remotely, and upload those transactions directly into the maintenance management and procurement system’s core database.

Can the company succeed where others have failed? Only time will tell, but it is fair to say it has a better chance both in terms of timing – mobile devices are much more accepted – and in terms of integration with a robust back-end.

AMOS Mobile users can walk around a vessel as part of their normal rounds and record inventory updates, create work requests, and update values for counter readings and measurement points, on-the-spot.

In an attempt to liberate crew from their desktop PCs, Spectec has unveiled new lightweight versions of its AMOS inventory and maintenance management tools for mobile devices

The system runs on any device running the Windows Mobile OS. In its current incarnation, the mobile application comprises two business modules: inventory and maintenance. A database held on the device contains all data entered by the user, as well as data copied from the AMOS Business Suite database.

In addition to performing inventory control, measure point updates, counter updates and work requisitions, the user can configure communication between the mobile device and the PC. Aping the capabilities of apps seen on contemporary smartphones, AMOS Mobile also takes advantage of the built-in camera some devices come with. When a crew member creates a work requisition, he can take photos with the device and attach these images to the work order.

It also recognises the bar code scanner or another tag identification reader that are sometimes available. The user has only to scan a bar code and

the part number is entered quickly and correctly, thereby preventing typing errors. SpecTec is not the first to experiment with this approach.

Most recently, competitor ship maintenance software vendor ABS Nautical Systems has been pushing barcode-assisted inventory management for several years, though uptake has been slower than anticipated, primarily due to the upfront investment in time and effort to barcode items before the system can really make a difference.

Architect of AMOS Mobile, SpecTec’s Jostein Ullestad, is understandably enthusiastic about the new system and in particular the immediacy it offers. ‘It’s a major step forward. By allowing operations to be conducted away from the normal work station, it will simplify the process of performing inventory control and readings of counters and gauges.

If there are any concerns with a piece of equipment, the operator can requisition the work there and then.’

So, while it may seem gimmicky at first glance, enabling crew to record data on-the-fly as they make their rounds could result in significant time savings and more likely increased accuracy over the hitherto approach when data had to be noted down and then, effectively, re-entered back at the PC terminal. How they cope with smaller keyboards however is another matter.

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4G will not interfere with radar

Ofcom is gearing up to raise some extra cash for the British government by selling the 2.6 GHz spectrum band to mobile operators as soon as practicable, while the 3.4 GHz spectrum band is expected to follow at a separate later date. The risk of interference arises because these two bands neatly envelope the 2.7-3.1 GHz frequency range on which S-band maritime navigation radars operate.

The problem of interference from 4G mobile networks was initially raised by aviation authorities, who feared disruption to air-traffic control radars. In 2009, the UK’s Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) picked up the scent and duly commissioned Cobham Technical Services (CTS) to investigate the sensitivity of Sband maritime radars to proposed usage of adjacent bands for mobile communications. That report suggested transmissions in the 3.4 GHz band and to a lesser extent in the 2.6 GHz could possibly cause interference to maritime radars.

Double trouble There are two principal mechanisms by which the 2.6 GHz base stations can cause interference into S-band maritime radars, namely amplifier compression and ‘out-of-band’ noise.

Maritime radar receivers in Sband have a radio frequency (RF) response broader than their conventionally defined radar bandwidth. That is to say, they ‘listen’ to signals outside of their spectrum band and are therefore potentially vulnerable to interference from transmissions in the 2.6 GHz band.

This interference can result in a phenomenon called amplifier compression, which has a detrimental effect on radar performance. The compression can generate target signal strength 20

MITE September/October 2011

High speed mobile broadband services will not significantly impact on maritime radar, but potential disruption to GPS remains a matter of heated debate reduction and inter-modulation products. The magnitude of the signals combined with the radar selectivity and the dynamic range of the radar components determines the range at which performance loss occurs.

Furthermore, 2.6 GHz base stations and user equipment can sometimes produce noise and other spurious emissions which fall within the radar bandwidth.

The range at which measurable interference to the radar occurs is a function of the magnitude of

these emissions and the radar’s sensitivity It is worth mentioning that Sband maritime radars operate at a higher frequency than the Air Traffic Control (ATC) radars which are located at the lower end of the S-band. This means that generally maritime radars are less susceptible to both compression and noise 2.6 GHz base station effects than their ATC counterparts.

There are other complex effects in the radar (such as mixer cross products, image frequencies, etc), but Ofcom shifts the responsibility of analysing and evaluating these issues on to individual radar manufacturers.

Degradation threshold Drawing on new data which was not available to CTS, Ofcom assessed the range at which S-band

Meeting the need for speed at sea THE EXPONENTIAL growth in mobile Internet usage on smart phones has also reached the high seas, or so proclaims Maritime Communications Partner (MCP), the Norwegian provider of GSM telephony services for passenger ships.

The company reports it has implemented the EDGE standard on selected cruise ships.

EDGE is a mobile radio technology that straddles the gap between 2G and 3G standards. By utilising bandwidth capacity more efficiently, it can carry a bandwidth up to 236.8 kbps, about four times as much traffic as GPRS, its 2G predecessor.

The main technical challenges were balancing the bandwidth requirements of the EDGE data service and conventional GSM voice transmissions and acquiring additional satellite bandwidth to cater for the anticipated increased in data usage.

Its introduction on ships will let passengers enjoy higher speeds and a better user experience when updating their Facebook account, checking the recent news on Twitter or just surfing the Internet on their phones.

This technology is, however, only an intermediate step towards the launch of full 3G and 4G services, which deliver even higher performance. In contrast to the upgrade to 2.5G, this will entail a complete overhaul of the radio access network. And for passengers to actually benefit from the ʻbetterʼ data speeds on 3G, the issue of delivering sufficient satellite bandwidth will have to be readdressed. Asides for the technological challenges, MCP will also have to develop a credible business model, capable of pleasing both passenger end-users and vessel operators.

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burg. To date no adverse impact upon shipping has been reported.

In view of this, and its own research efforts, the regulator does not plan to impose any restrictions on the use of the 2.6 Ghz networks in coastal areas, but will keep the matter under review.

maritime radars experience the onset of the smallest measurable degradation in performance – deemed to be a 5% loss in the probability of detecting an object – due to transmissions in the 2.6 GHz band.

Ofcom’s calculations put the absolute limit of a detectable signal at around two-and-a-half miles out to sea, with actual interference not being seen until the ship gets within 500m of the transmitter.

But the regulator is careful to stress this represents only an estimation of the range at which interference may be detected.

‘We are unable to relate this to a point at which the operational performance of S-band radar sys-

tems is impaired,’ which it says, ‘is the remit of others.’

Having engaged with the maritime industry, it concludes that interference at these ranges would not cause a safety of life issue. Typically S-band radar would not be used at range at which interference is predicted.

The authors continue: ‘In an operational environment ship borne radars frequently experience performance degradation of greater levels due to line-of-sight obstructions, and interference from off-shore wind farms.’

Ofcom notes 2.6 Ghz base stations have already been deployed in a number of coastal cities in Sweden, including Stockholm, Visby, Malmo and Gothen-

US Coast Guard VTS radar station: Conflicts related to spectrum usage are likely to become more common

Position asserted 4G has been causing problems elsewhere too. LightSquared – a commercial venture to develop a nationwide 4G LTE wireless broadband communications network integrated with L-band satellite coverage across the United States – has received much flak from parties involved in the delivery of satellite positioning services over concerns it will interfere with the reception of GPS signals.

While seemingly peripheral to the maritime domain, few would welcome any disruption to GPS in coastal waters, which are typically the most congested channels vessels must safely navigate.

LightSquared has now hit back with a strongly worded letter the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) placing the blame squarely on the GPS industry itself. ‘Failure to comply with filtering standards is the root cause of potential interference issues between LightSquared’s proposed broadband wireless network and GPS,’ asserts company executive vice president for regulatory affairs Jeffrey Carlisle.

A US Department of Defense GPS performance standard issued in September 2008 requires GPS receivers to filter out transmissions from adjacent bands in order to be fit for purpose.

Carlisle says that in addition to ignoring the DoD standard, manufacturers have also spurned international recommendations for GPS receiver design. Since 2000, he explains, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has cautioned that ‘a more stringent pre-correlator filter may be needed to protect [GPS] receiver operations from adjacent band RF emissions.’

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iDirect tunes into ship ownerʼs needs It appears iDirect wants to position itself as the Intel for maritime satcoms industry. Not so long ago, the company was virtually unknown within shipping circles. Today it is much more visible.

Akin to way as the world’s dominant CPU designer and manufacturer lets PC builders use the ‘Intel Inside’ slogan (and that annoying jingle) in their product marketing, the satcoms modem supplier is happy to allow maritime VSAT network operators use its name as a signifier of a high-quality service offering.

Of course, the strategy is not entirely altruistic. Though Intel does not sell direct to end-users, its revenues do go up when sales of Intel-powered PCs increase. A similar relationship exists between iDirect and maritime VSAT. It is against this backdrop that the company recently carried out what it bills as the most extensive survey ever into the 22

MITE September/October 2011

Ship owners and managers might be more informed about VSAT broadband than ever before, but they still encounter difficulties when assessing its business value current state of VSAT satcoms and from that deduce future trends. Because an abridged public-domain version of the survey results is available on request from iDirect*, this article will focus on a number of the more interesting findings rather than summarise the entire report.

Monthly spend First, either the most startling or honest result: the study found that average monthly satcoms spend on VSAT (at US$3500) is considerably higher than L-band services, such as Inmarsat (at US$1050). At first glance these figures would seem to contradict

the arguments service providers make about VSAT saving ship operators money. The report’s authors contend that these figures do not provide the whole picture.

To quote Oscar Wilde, nowadays people know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

The crux of the issue comes down to how you go about quantifying the ‘value’ of communications. To take a crude example, a vessel using VSAT satcoms might have used its always-on connection to download weather forecasts thus avoiding heavy weather and the fuel penalty that would have been incurred sailing through it. While the logic is sound, it is difficult to calculate costs that haven’t been incurred.

In a related point, the report notes that the likelihood of VSAT upgrade going ahead depends on who presents the business case for it. An IT dept manager is more likely to consider ‘costs’ in respect of their own budget and compare with other services (ie,

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Orbit debuts shrinking C-band antenna Inmarsat), while a CTO or CIO is more predisposed – or has greater freedom – to take into account the bigger picture ‘value’.

Awareness and understanding of the technical and operational proposition of VSAT was, overall, found to be better than expected. Only a small minority (7%) of survey respondents cited complexity as a barrier to adoption, the report proclaims.

Committed clarity Some confusion still lingers about Committed Information Rates (CIRs), which a few respondents fell into the trap of treating as maximum data rates.

CIRs are a minimum level of service that the VSAT service provider is required to deliver at all times. So-called ‘burstable’ rates may be significantly higher.

The mix-up occurs because Lband providers prefer to quote maximum ‘burstable’ rate on a contended services, while VSAT provider prefer to talk in terms of CIRs. Furthermore, some CIRs are quite low as VSAT providers have sought to lower the price of their offerings to compete with those of L-band services.

Moreover, many potential adopters are perplexed by the multi-tiered structure of the VSAT ecosystem – from sourcing airtime from multiple space-segment providers, to selecting network operators (or their virtual counterparts) and equipment manufacturers. Clarifying this structure is something the industry would be wise to address.

Customers with some knowledge appear worse off than if they had no knowledge at all. Even a relatively simple term, such as ‘always-on’, can be misinterpreted, as exemplified in an anecdote shared with MITE about a ship operator who concluded that VSAT was not ‘always-on’ because the ship can sail beyond the satellite coverage area.

Business case One intriguing result to come of iDirect’s research is that crew welfare, traditionally considered the primary driver for VSAT

ANTENNA MANUFACTURER Orbit Communication Systems has debuted a new dual frequency VSAT antenna, which supports extended C-Band and extended Ku-band frequencies, as well as several RF feeds featuring electrically switchable linear and circular polarisations.

The new AL-7107 OrBand antenna offers industry-standard RF performance equivalent to a 2.4m dish in a 2.2m diameter design, which, when the radome is included, results in a compact 2.7m footprint. According to Orbit, it therefore takes up 40% less deck space and is more than 30% lighter than other systems on the market.

Because of its smaller than average size, a fully-assembled and tested antenna and its radome fit into a standard 20ft container, reducing shipping costs and allowing for dramatically shorter deployment times. The company claims that a unique six-piece radome design enables final assembly and installation in a matter of hours, rather than the 2-3 days more usually required. Set-up is further simplified thanks to a design with a single multiplexed coax cable. Consequently, it can be deployed while ships are on routine port calls, substantially driving down operational costs and eliminating the need for vessels to await dry dock.

The unit seamlessly supports all C/Ku-band frequencies and optional RF feeds including: C-band linear (V/H) electrically switchable; C-band circular (RH/LH) electrically switchable; Cband linear (V/H) and circular (RH/LH) electrically switchable; and Ku-band linear (V/H) electrically switchable. It supports automatic beam switching for seamless global coverage with satellites across geographical regionsthrough the industry-standard OpenAMIP protocol.

adoption, has moved down the list of priorities. With a near balance of demand and supply of seafarers (except in some niche sectors), the technology is now more commonly assessed in terms of the commercial advantage it can bring.

Coverage – or perceived lack thereof – was a recurring theme during the research. While the level of available VSAT coverage over the world’s primary sea-lanes increased considerably during the last five or so years, expansion over the remaining gaps seems to have tailed off. For a ship on spot charter, this is an issue that cannot be ignored. It is understandable why a requirement to put in place contingency solutions detracts from the business case for installing VSAT in the first place.

Some ship owners and managers, nevertheless, do see a valid business case. The message that the authors most want to drum home is the fact that nearly a third of owners are planning to adopt VSAT within the next 12-24 months.

Game changer?

One element missing from the report was any mention of Kaband, and more specifically Inmarsat’s proposed Global Xpress (GX) service. This might be down to timing than anything

else: most of the research was carried out in the second half of last year, before news of this development had time to percolate through the industry.

It is, however, the view of MITE that regardless of whether or not Inmarsat meets its ambitious launch target date, market awareness of the new system (combined with a still weak global economy) will affect decisions on the purchase of what might now be construed as a legacy technology. (To be pedantic, GX is fundamentally the same technology as existing VSAT, but operating on a different part of the spectrum – namely Ka-band).

This is not to presuppose GX will bring about an immediate demise of Ku-band. That is not going to happen. But it will give an excuse to those contemplating an upgrade but unsure to delay making a final decision.

And one doubts whether iDirect has much cause for complaint even if GX were to become a runaway success. As previously reported, Inmarsat has awarded iDirect a US$60m contract to provide the ground infrastructure and shipboard terminals for Inmarsat’s forthcoming Ka-band service. * iDirectʼs report can be downloaded in full from: www.idirect.net/maritime

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Discovery crew discover the value of VSAT Life for the crew and researchers working aboard the RRS Discovery, a scientific research vessel maintained by the UKʼs National Oceanography Centre at Southampton, has become more comfortable following the installation of a VSAT service from NSSLGlobal.

Whilst the Discoveryʼs communications needs are fundamentally structured around the shipʼs work, in this day and age, the need for wider access to the internet must be considered when selecting an appropriate solution for a vessel.

The Discovery has been fitted with NSSLʼs Cruise-IP VSAT service and a FleetBroadband system; ensuring connectivity wherever the vessel travels ‒ important for a research vessel which, though primarily based in the Atlantic Ocean, may equally well be deployed to more remote locations.

24

The ship employs NSSLʼs allyou-can-eat Cruise-IP service, providing broadband coverage via DVBS2-RCS network for a fixed monthly fee, across one of the most comprehensive Kuband coverage footprints in the world. Alongside, it also employs a FleetBroadband FB500 terminal to provide seamless operation should the vessel go beyond the Ku-band footprint,

The Discovery now has allyou-can-eat VSAT

but without incurring any extra costs. ʻPairing our Cruise-IP service with FleetBroadband lets shipowners gain the full advantage the benefits of our DCBS2RCS network, with the peace of mind of Inmarsatʼs global coverage,ʼ says NSSLGlobalʼs commer-

cial director Sally Ray. Ray believes that modern demands for connectivity call for a different mindset from satcoms providers. She elaborates: ʻIn the past providers would typically offer solutions based on a single product or service. But the focus of the industry is changing. There is a clear requirement now to provide fully integrated solutions, employing multiple technologies, in order to deliver seamless communications in a cost effective way.ʼ Ships Master onboard the Discovery, Antonio Gatti, commented: ʻWe have a constant connection to the shore office, which has made the running of the ship much faster and smoother, as well as the ability to engage in the shipʼs scientific mission as it happens. Weʼve also wired the connection to all the cabins, giving crew personal access. The ability to keep in touch with family has made a genuine difference to the quality of life when at sea.ʼ

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Ship Equip completes infrastructure upgrade VSAT provider Ship Equip has, in concert with its airtime supplier NewWave Broadband, deployed iDirectʼs iDX 2.1 software across its network infrastructure, in order to meet the demands of growing maritime userbase.

Since delivering its first SEVSAT installation in 2003, Ship Equip today has close to 1000 systems on vessels in operation across a high number of networks. The number of vessels in a network varies, depending on location and traffic patterns, which can make it difficult to maintain consistent quality of service (QoS).

Some vessels are fairly stationary within a network; this is typically offshore vessels and short sea shipping vessels. Others constantly travel in between networks; this would typically be deep sea

shipping vessels, offshore vessels being reassigned to new markets and fishing vessels following seasonal changes.

With the growing number of vessels and networks, the need to constantly organise and optimise networks has grown considerably, to the point where Ship Equip decided to carry out a major infrastructure upgrade. The maritime satcoms service provider says the alterations will make it easier to tailor networks to specific vessel needs and sailing patterns, while improving the service towards end-user vessels. Despite the extent and complexity of the upgrade very few problems were encountered.

COO Esben Flo says that though it was large and complex project, the upgrade will pave the way to new products that suit the growing markets

Tying the knot

around the world. In the short term, however, it will allow ShipEquip to offer tailored customer Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that can be more consistently managed on a global basis.

The work involved rolling out iDirectʼs iDX 2.1 software across the infrastructure of NewWave Broadband, Ship Equipʼs airtime provider. This infrastructure consists of 36 networks spanning 10 teleports throughout Europe, the United States and Australia. iDX 2.1 adds a new bandwidth allocation algorithm to iDirectʼs Group QoS technology.

Vessels can retain their QoS configuration as ships travel across multiple networks. The entire upgrade was accomplished seamlessly with minimal service disruption to the 1000 active vessels on Ship Equipʼs SEVSAT service.

Vizada has announced a new satcoms package that leverages the latest VSAT hardware from Thrane & Thrane. The new package marries Thrane & Thraneʼs Sailor 900 VSAT antenna system and Sailor FleetBroadband terminals with Vizadaʼs Pharostar VSAT and FleetBroadband airtime services.

Tying the knot is Vizadaʼs recently introduced XChange platform, designed as a conduit for least-cost routing and as a tool to streamline the admin burden of communications management at sea. The two companies will combine their distribution and support channels for the new package.

Pharostar will gracefully degrade to FleetBroadband when ships are traversing waters where Ku-band reception is unavailable.

The company plans to complement the core communications service with a range of value-adds such as pre-paid services for crew.

Communications you can rely on

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TRACKING

Machines to chat more Inmarsat is seeking to expand its satcoms coverage footprint into the realm of machine-to-machine (M2M) telemetry, a territory thus far dominated by Iridium’s short-burst data (SBD) service, at least within the maritime sector. IsatData Pro is a new M2M service for managing and communicating with remote assets globally.

The service launched jointly

by Inmarsat and SkyWave Mobile Communications is said to offer a significant increase in payload capacity compared to other satellite-based M2M services on the market, delivering up to 10 000 bytes to the device and up to 6400 bytes send.

In its official announcement, Inmarsat states that other global M2M satellite services currently available are limited to 340 bytes downlink and 270 bytes uplink.

Which just so happen to be the design specs of Iridium’s SBD service, so no prizes here for guessing who Inmarsat considers its main competitor to be in this marketplace.

For mission-critical applications, IsatData Pro can transmit a 100-byte message in less than 15 seconds, or a 1000-byte message in 45 seconds (MITE assumes the non-linear relationship is due to reduced handshaking in the latter case).

M2M is widely regarded as a burgeoning market, but according to Inmarsat’s Drew Brandy, one that is presently under-served and therefore cannot meet growing demand.

A larger packet SkyWave’s Sean Faulkner is also keen to highlights the potential benefits that accrue from larger data packets. To date M2M has often been constrained to tracking and monitoring applications.

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MITE September/October 2011

A new telemetry service from Inmarsat and SkyWave will give machines considerably more data capacity to communicate with each other compared to existing solutions, but what will they chat about?

Skywaveʼs terminal can send and received longer messages than other systems on the market

Access to extra bytes, he believes, will open the door to enhanced logistic services: ‘Utilities can send more data, more reliably, from more sensors.’

‘SCADA applications can go

from alarm monitoring to really driving the performance and value of equipment. It enables organisations to stay in touch with remote assets and workers where, previously, this was technically impossible or prohibited by cost.’

SkyWave’s IDP 600 series of all-weather data terminals include integrated GPS, as well as digital and analogue ports for connecting sensors to relay data such as fuel levels, engine temperature and speed.

Serial interfaces provide access to the detailed diagnostic and operation information necessary to increase visibility of how equipment is being used. And GUI-based programming tools let developers customise the operation of the terminals to offer their own unique solutions.

By delivering close to 40 times more data, Inmarsat and SkyWave claim IsatData Pro can meet the increasing demand for richer information in M2M applications, and allows businesses to share more data across diverse operations, via emails, electronic forms and workflow information.

Long battery life is the key to M2M success THE BIGGEST challenge with any kind of transceivers is battery life. Because these devices are often destined for use on remote assets, minimising the need for human intervention ‒ for example, to replace dead batteries ‒ is essential to make them a workable proposition.

Small low power circuits can help. But the device still has to have sufficient juice to beam a signal to the sky. In this respect, Iridium would appear to be at an advantage because its lowearth orbit satellites are less far away then Inmarsatʼs birds circling the Earth in a geo-stationary orbit.

Another challenge is transceiver placement. It must have adequate line-of-sight to the satellite. On a ship, you might think this would not be a significant problem. However, it is clear that a transceiver fixed to a container at the bottom a stack would have difficulties achieving this.

To overcome this, one of Iridiumʼs partners has found a solution in the form of WiFi-powered LANs, enabling a deeply stowed container to send its data to those above it until it reaches a box that can see the sky.

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Weathering the storm From this MITE conjectures that the limited capacity of, say Iridium’s SBD, led to frustrated M2M application developers having to use specially coded bespoke interfaces to send commands, poll for data etc.

Over capacity?

By addressing this constraint, longer data packets would allow abbreviated, non-human friendly formats to be replaced by commands inserted in the subject or body of an email, or even transmitted as encapsulated XML. Likewise, responses can be more verbose. Perhaps it might pave the way for a direct connection to some kind of whiz-bang Web 2.0 application. However, the question is what would these applications do?

To date, the use of satellite telemetry in the maritime context hasn’t gone much beyond basic position monitoring for security and emergency response purposes. Some shippers have adopted the technology for keeping a close eye on high-value cargoes. There are solutions, built around Iridium’s SBD service, for checking the temperature of a cargo in a container does not exceed certain thresholds or that the container hasn’t been compromised. Such data streams clearly do not require 10 000 bytes capacity.

Blurred boundaries But longer message packets do

open up other non-M2M possibilities. With the increased payload capacity between satellite and terminal, vessel owners who don’t have onboard broadband could use the device to send text messages and or text-only emails. Inmarsat says the broadcast capability of the service will support functions such as simultaneously sending weather and navigational information to multiple vessels in a specified region.

Fishing industry regulators will also be interested in the IsatData Pro service because it will enable more data to be sent reliably for vessel monitoring and electronic reporting applications.

Beyond receiving notification of when fishing vessels enter/leave a specific zone (ed: geo-fencing), regulators could collect additional data, relating to the catch or environment or even the vessel’s engine. Whether the fisherman would be happy about such a development is another question.

In this sense, IsatData Pro is blurring the line between telemetry service and simple messaging solution. This may not be a bad thing. Indeed parallels can be drawn with the situation found elsewhere in the satcoms ecosystem, where the Lband, C-band and Ku-band offer a range of different capabilities.

Like everything, it will depend on the customer to balance price against performance.

FEARS ARE growing about the disruption to both satellite and terrestrial communications, satellite-aided navigation systems (and even power-grids) that might ensue as we approach the next ʻhigh tideʼ of solar storms.

Solar storms are caused by sunspots, where magnetic energy builds up and then explodes off the sun.

Disruption to electrical systems can occur when the surge of ions generated by these explosions reaches the Earthʼs atmosphere. Sunspots follow a predictable 11year cycle of high and low activity, and the next peak is due to occur in 2013.

Nevertheless Iridium has already experienced a surge of queries from concerned users about the potential impact on its satcoms services. The company is however confident that its birds are able to withstand the stormy weather ahead, thanks primarily to their sheltered low-earth orbit (LEO). ʻLEO satellites like ours are more stable because the Earthʼs atmosphere absorbs much of the solar radiation.

Conversely, geostationary satellites are farther out and more vulnerable,ʼ said Dan Mercer, EMEA vice-president for Iridium. ʻThe engineers who designed Iridiumʼs satellites added extra layers of “hardening” against radiation exposure, as well as a high degree of on-board subsystem resiliency, fault detection, and isolation and recovery capabilities. The 66 satellites in Iridiumʼs constellation are also cross-linked to provide overlapping coverage of the entire globe, so even if a satellite is damaged our subscribers are likely to still have coverage.ʼ Indeed this cross-linking ability was put to the test and passed in flying colours in February 2009 when a defunct Russian military satellite collided and knocked out one of Iridiumʼs constellation. Hardly any disruption was felt by end-users of the service.

MITE GOES ONLINE Stay up to date: Visit the website for your regular fix of maritime IT news updates Get the inside track: Access exclusive content not seen in the print magazine

Go interactive: Join the Maritime IT group on Linked-In and help shape future content Look ahead: Find out what features and topics are lined up for future issues

MITE September/October 2011

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A shocking waste In the hull design and outfitting disciplines of ship design, engineers are accustomed to working with software tools which integrate and control the various elements of mechanical data. But surprisingly, the electrical and instrumentation (E&I) disciplines are typically not so well served, leading to these vital systems being designed and specified using an assortment of inefficient and incompatible tools, with damaging and costly consequences.

E&I is not only a major investment in materials and installation, it is critical to safe and efficient operation, so there is a considerable premium on rightfirst-time design and the subsequent ease of maintenance.

When compiling the requirements for a new software application to meet this need, the ship design software provider Aveva consulted E&I experts across the engineering industries.

This revealed the full extent to which E&I have lagged behind mechanical design, prompting the company to publish its findings in a new business paper. Entitled A Shocking Waste of Money, the paper* highlights eight reasons why electrical design costs more than it should. It makes required reading for any electrical engineering manager.

Problems identified The issues below represent four of eight key factors identified in Aveva’s research: 1. Cabling is designed in isolation. There is little or no integration between the E&I disciplines and those of hull and outfitting design. This is in sharp contrast to the tight integration achievable between schematic systems design and 3D design. It became clear that this gives rise to significant waste, both in manhours and materials. By effectively in-

Tools to help accelerate and manage the design of electrical systems on newbuilds have been woefully underpowered, writes Dave Gibson*

tegrating cable routing with the 3D design, Aveva and its customers estimated cost savings in excess of 30% could be achieved.

2. Current change management methods are inadequate.

Considering that change is at the heart of engineering and design, it is surprising the extent to which change management in E&I is largely an unmanaged process. To a very great extent it relies on the knowledge and diligence of the engineers involved, where it should rely on automation to ensure that data is fully controlled. Skilled engineers should focus on the system design, not be bogged down in the minutiae of data management.

3. Inadequate interoperability between different systems. A set of individual solutions can be effective if they can efficiently share data, but this is rarely achieved. Mixed IT environments are a reality, but too many E&I applications only work in isolation. Users consistently voiced frustration over this issue, particularly those who were familiar with the levels of interoperability achieved in other disciplines.

4. The tools are not sufficiently user-friendly. This manifests itself in two ways.

First, most applications do not make effective use of the common office productivity tools, so ‘round-tripping’ data via spreadsheets is often not possible or at best, very efficient. Considering

how engineers love spreadsheets, this deficiency is all the more surprising. The second aspect lies in the common use of ‘dumb’ drawings. In the other schematic disciplines it is usual for drawing generation to be linked to schematic design, so that changes in one are automatically reflected in the other without having to be updated manually. It is easy to appreciate the unnecessary work and the scope for costly errors that this lack of integration creates.

Aveva’s research confirmed the need for a new and effective electrical engineering application, but the extent of this need, the frustrations experienced by professionals working in this area, and the magnitude of the potential cost and time savings were a genuine surprise. As a result, Aveva accelerated the development programme of its forthcoming Aveva Electrical product, now expected to be released early in 2012.

This new application will embody many of the productivity features already found in Aveva Instrumentation, such as intuitive, spreadsheet-style data management and a graphical drag & drop interface for schematic design. Currently undergoing final testing and user evaluation, Aveva Electrical aims to overcome the shortcomings described in the business paper.

The new standards-compliant application shares a common Aveva database technology, allowing it to be adopted either as a stand-alone application or as part of a more extensive Aveva or mixed technologies environment. * The full report can be downloaded from www.aveva.com/publications ** Dave Gibson is Avevaʼs head of business management for E&I systems

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Chart distribution channels unblocked Recently I came across a story of a captain that lost his position due to the fact that he was unable to obtain and demonstrate the relevant electronic chart permits for his intended voyage to the authorities. It turned out that there were some problems with the retrieval of the ENC permits prior to departure. Under pressure from an already tight sailing schedule the captain received instructions from the ship owner to commence departure. The shore crew would settle the technical issue with the chart agent and supply the vessel with the correct permit files by mail while the vessel sailed to its next destination.

Owing to continued communication problems the vessel was unable to obtain the correct permit files while travelling, forcing them to sail with non-compliant ENC charts for its intended destination. Upon review by the authorities the shore crew refrained from taking responsibility for the matter and the captain lost its job.

Complex logistics Without having reviewed the full background of this specific example, difficulties with the management and retrieval of ENC licenses are quite common. The logistics behind the distribution of ENCs is quite complex. We could ask ourselves whether the current ENC distribution principles are really contributing to the adoption and integration of ECDIS in the shipping community, and whether these ultimately lead to safer navigation?

To answer this question, a better understanding of the his30

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For many years, the distribution chain for electronic charts has been dogged by over complexity. The situation is improving, but there are several roadblocks still to be crossed, writes Jelle Glas*

tory of electronic charts, the current distribution chain and the functioning of the different ENC services is necessary. Though with the phased in mandation of ECDIS due to start next year, the shipping community will need to prepare themselves, regardless of the outcome of this question.

Despite the innovative character of the industry, mariners are still quite traditional when it comes to navigation. Paper charts are commonly accepted.

The majority of mariners still prefer paper charts as their primary means of navigation. However over the course of the past decade an increasing number are using digital data in support of paper navigation. The use of ARCS and C-MAP folios is well established, allowing easy access to affordable unofficial electronic data without having to conduct any license management.

However unofficial navigational data is not comparable to officially accepted S-57 ENCs. But unfortunately, the difference between the two types is often not fully appreciated by users, which leads to confusion. Furthermore, in many cases the simultaneous use of unofficial data and paper leads to safety risks.

The pricing model for official ENCs does not really allow the use of regional or world ENC fo-

lios, as is commonly seen with unofficial data. Instead, mariners are expected to manage and retrieve voyage specific ENC folios, which brings us to the crux of the current distribution problem.

Mystery ʻblack boxʼ Considered at the most basic level, the distribution of Electronic Navigational Charts is identical to that of the paper counterpart. For paper charts mariners use the Admiralty paper chart catalogue (NP131) to determine the right paper charts for their intended voyage. They analyse their current outfit and order the additional paper charts they on an as-needed basis. The NP131 however is a static document, published annually, which is limited to providing a general outline of chart coverage. It is only after the chart has actually been purchased that the mariner is able to view it in detail. In short, therefore, a mariner is buying a mystery ‘black box’, the exact contents of which he can only know after unwrapping!

The same ‘black box’ metaphor applies to the retrieval of ENCs. In this case, a mariner uses a digital catalogue to procure and management ENC licenses, but he can only view the actual content of an individual ENC after the actual purchase and installation of the permit on the ECDIS. However, in contrast to the widely used NP131, a multitude of digital chart catalogues are available in the market, bringing yet another threshold to the acceptance of ECDIS. Even though bridge officers are undergoing increasingly rigorous training in the use of type specific ECDIS systems, there is a tendency to overlook education

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in the proper use of digital chart catalogues and how ENC licenses and outfits should be managed.

Mariners often encounter difficulties in learning the finer elements of how digital chart catalogues operate. And the fact that there are approximately 3600 Admiralty charts and more than 11 000 ENCs does not make their task any easier!

Honesty and simplicity The ‘fuel source’ for paper and digital services is completely different. The Admiralty is the primary distribution channel for paper charts. Originally ENCs were intended to be distributed according to WEND (World Wide Electronic Chart Database) principles. The idea behind WEND is honest and simple: to make all standardised and encrypted navigational data available to the entire maritime community through Regional ENC Centres (RENCs).

Today there are two such RENC centres – Primar and the IC-ENC. Many of the world’s hydrographical offices are members, but not all. The ENC coverage of non-member nations, for example those in southeast Asia, is supplied to the market by means of exclusive contracts with ‘value added resellers’ (VARs) further down the distribution chain.

While the primary function of RENC centres is to oversee the supply of standardised ENC data, it is up to VARs such as the Admiralty, Transas, Jeppesen, Datema, Maris, Primar and Chartworld to develop services to facilitate actual distribution of ENCs to vessels. This involves the development of the digital chart catalogues and relevant digital updating and Notices to Mariners services. Such services include AVCS, TADS, Dynamic Licensing, ENC-Online.

The fundamental functionality of the digital catalogues supporting these services is broadly similar. The mariner fills his basket with required ENC permits and forwards it to his chart agent.

One of the more widely used services is AVCS from the UKHO. The AVCS chart agent is required to manually transfer basket files (received from vessels) to the UKHO point-of-sale (APOS) ordering platform, through which they receive the permit file and forward this back to the vessel.

Manual intervention The problem with this type of service is it requires considerable manual intervention and shipping, as we all know, is not a 9to-5 business. The administrative delay could be construed as a potential safety risk. Datema is one

of the few that have managed to create a B2B link with Primar and IC-ENC allowing them to automatically generate permits and updates 24/7 giving ship owners continuous access to permits and updates.

Though the start date for compulsory ECDIS is rapidly approaching, the current percentage of vessels sailing paperless is still quite limited. Market research indicates that some 27 000 of the 50 000 SOLAS vessel will be affected between 2012 and 2018. But in this time of economic downturn, many of the owners of these ships are reluctant to invest in ECDIS. The financial and training burdens of integrating ECDIS are perceived as too demanding, and so they are inclined to postpone deployment for as long as possible.

Would a simplified distribution chain for ENCs help alleviate this reluctance?

A radically new approach to ENC distribution emerged on the market in 2009 when Datema introduced its ‘pay-as-you sail’ ENCTrack service, which tackles most of the shortcomings of traditional pre-paid services. The safety issues, for example, are addressed by having permits for all charts preinstalled, which enables mariners to prepare for voyages using ENCs on all available scales.

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For same reason, license management ceases to be an issue. From the perspective of operational efficiency, the vessel only pays for what was used afterwards, thus considerably reducing the overhead on the superintendent.

Debate concluded This fresh new approach provides answers to many of the issues related to the acceptance of ECDIS within the shipping industry, but at the same time sparked considerable controversy in the hydrographical community. The UKHO as member of the IC-ENC questioned the validity of the new concept. What followed was a political debate on the value of the planning and the definition of first use.

Pending the outcome the IC-ENC temporarily withdrew their data from Datema’s PAYS service.

This debate ebbed and flowed for some 24-months until a formal conclusion was finally reached in April this year. The IC-ENC has now accepted the

PAYS concept and other VARs are now also allowed to develop their own PAYS services. Ship operators are finally able to reap the benefits of instant access to official ENC data.

By adopting PAYS, the hydrographical community has taken a major step towards in furthering the acceptance of ECDIS and preparing the shipping industry for compulsory ECDIS starting July 2012.

There are, however, roadblocks that must still be crossed.

While IC-ENC is satisfied with the PAYS concept, coverage is an issue. Several independent nations, operating outside the RENC framework, are yet to give a green light to PAYS. Furthermore, as discussed above, some VARs have exclusive contracts with those independent nations allowing them exclusive use of this data within their own services. The UKHO, to take one example, not only competes on quality of service, but leverages exclusive cover-

age as a commercial value-add.

Are we therefore not back to square one? UKHO has enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the distribution of paper charts, and it is seeking a similar position in the digital market. From an end-user perspective having a single dominant player with exclusive coverage cannot be a good thing.

Pricing flexibility will be limited and end-user services will suffer, due to the lack of competition.

The hydrographical community should refamiliarise itself with the core principles that underpin WEND and bring all available ENC data under the same roof. Secondly, it should streamline the conditions of distribution, to open up the playing field and let VARs compete with each other based on quality of service.

If not, the shipping industry can rightfully challenge the validity of the mandate of ECDIS. * Jelle Glas is international sales manager for Datema Nautical Safety

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IMO NAV experts revise standards The NAV Sub-Committee agreed on revised performance standards for voyage data recorders (VDRs), which will be submitted to the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC 90) for adoption.

The revisions update the current performance standards and provide for the VDR to continuously maintain sequential records of preselected data items relating to the status and output of the ship’s equipment, and command and control of the ship in a fixed recording medium; a float-free recording medium; and a long-term recording medium.

AIS aids-to-navigation IMO’s navigation experts went on to establish a correspondence group to develop a first draft of a policy for AIS aids to navigation (AtoNs). This could cover future development of new chart symbols for AIS aids to navigation.

This group will deliver a report for consideration and review by NAV 58 next year.

AIS AtoNs can be either real or virtual. A real AIS-AtoN is attached to a physical aid to navigation such as buoy. Its purpose is to enhance the image of the physical aid on a navigational display and, if applicable, inform the ship about the aid’s status.

Virtual AIS-AtoNs on the other hand could be useful to temporarily mark a sudden danger or obstacle to navigation such as a wreck until a real aid to naviga-

VDR performance standards, enavigation implementation plans, bridge visibility and AIS aids to navigation all came under the spotlight at IMOʼs Sub-Committee on Safety of Navigation when it convened for its 57th session in June

tion is deployed. They might also be used to mark a point where a real aid to navigation is difficult to deploy, such as a deep-water sea route.

E-navigation strategy The Sub-Committee made further progress in the developing its implementation plan for enavigation. It agreed on an overarching e-navigation architecture, which will be kept under review, delineating how the various ship- and the shoreside parts will be connected.

The architecture introduces the concept of Maritime Service Portfolio (MSP) which defines and describes the set of operational and technical services and the level of service to be provided by a stakeholder in a given sea area, waterway, or port, as appropriate.

The architecture also includes the Common Maritime Data Structure (CMDS) which will be pivotal to the harmonisa-

tion between the technical systems of different stakeholders both ship- and shore-based.

It was agreed to use the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO)’s S-100 Geospatial Standard for Hydrographic Data as the baseline for creating a framework for data access and services under the scope of SOLAS. S-100 can support a variety of hydrographic-related digital data sources, products and customers, including the use of imagery and gridded data, enhanced metadata specifications, unlimited encoding formats and a more flexible maintenance regime.

The MSC was invited to approve the establishment of an IMO/IHO Harmonization Group on Data Modelling to consider matters related to the framework for data access and information services under the scope of SOLAS, using as a baseline IHO’s S-100 standard.

Bridge visibility Agreement was reached on draft proposed amendments to SOLAS regulation V/22 on navigation bridge visibility. The proposed revisions are intended to clarify vague expressions relating to blind sectors, height of lower and upper edge of bridge front windows, clear view through the bridge front windows.

A new section was added to address cargo stowed on deck, forward of the wheelhouse, which could limit visibility.

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Ship@Web architecture: Protection from outside threats was a key requirement

Ship@Web enables a vessel’s administrative network, or the owner/operator’s onshore network to display data from the automation system.

Kongsberg Maritime has been offering this capability within its automation systems using proprietary ‘Fleetmaster’ technology for over a decade. However, to enable remote viewing of the automation data on the older system, requires a significant effort, with each installation being custom designed for the specific vessel and operator.

Web interface ‘The advantages of having access to the large amounts of useful data generated by the automation system go without saying, which is why several operators already manage their vessels and fleets using such a system,’ explains Kongsberg Maritime’s Ship@Web product manager Johnny Johnsen. ‘The difficulties, though, are in creating the infrastructure and security for realtime delivery of this data, which until we started Ship@Web, meant every vessel needed a custom solution. With Ship@Web, we’ve turned this on its head as now all you really need is a webbrowser to view the data, after some very minor additions to your K-Chief 600 system.’

The additions Johnsen highlights are essentially a combination of switches, firewall and a webserver. The main role of the server is to be the connection point with external networks requiring information from the KChief 600 system. The server will be the host for all thin clients, both on the administrative network and on the external shore ship owner LAN. It does not contain display or user interface units as it’s maintained remotely by using the K-Chief 600 operating system. No maintenance or operation by the crew on-board is needed.

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Moving engine data to the web Kongsberg Maritimeʼs new web interface for automation data promises tangible operational benefits for engineers and operators both aboard ship and ashore purely a read-only service. Users are prohibited from making changes to the K-Chief 600 via Ship@Web (unless they happen to be an authorised Kongsberg Maritime engineer).The K-Chief 600 process network is completely isolated from the external networks. The only way to get information from the K-Chief 600 system is through the Ship@Web server. This protects the process LAN from viruses, trojans and other threats from outside.

‘We have been extremely cautious by closing down the possibility of remote operation of K-Chief 600 using Ship@Web,’ says Johnsen. ‘We have however

made it possible for Kongsberg Maritime engineers to give the on board officers online support and update the K-Chief 600 over Ship@Web, which based on the competence and security processes we have in-house is a benefit that will help the on board engineers and save the owner or operator money on maintenance.’

Apps for engineers With a secure connection to the K-Chief 600 established the Ship@Web system can be accessed from network nodes on board or onshore, with the data being used in an operational ap-

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Main Ship@Web applications Viewer

proach by engineers at sea and the opportunity for a more strategic approach by technical staff or managers on-shore, for improving single vessel or whole fleet efficiency.

Typical use over the ship’s administrative network could be when the crew need information from the K-Chief 600 system in offices and cabins located on the ship. The data can be used for further analysis and comparison away from the K-Chief operator stations and live view of mimics and trends are displayed in realtime through the Ship@Web browser interface. The overall goal is to support engineers and officers in ensuring the vessel is being operated correctly and efficiently at all times.

For shore or external networks, typical uses will be when the ship owner needs information from the K-Chief 600 system to shore or headquarter for further analysis and comparison, snapshots of mimics, logbook pages, bunker reports and so on.

The goal here is for managers to utilise the data to increase efficiency, reduce running costs and emissions or improve maintenance procedures for the specific vessel and an entire fleet. For instance, if the fleet contains vessels with the same configuration, but one is under performing, then it’s possible to review the data from other vessels to see where it could improve.

The data is delivered by a number of applications that can be chosen according to the vessel and the operator’s requirements of the data. Johnsen says these applications can be chosen according to need and are designed specifically to be easy to read in a web browser. The user interface is carefully designed to support the operator in his daily routine.

‘Retrofitting Ship@Web to vessels already sailing with KChief 600 only requires a minor hardware installation, but the first system will be going on a new build Very Large Crude Carrier under in South Korea,’ concludes Johnsen.

The Viewer is interfaced with a K-Chief 600 process network (LAN) on-board the vessel or linked to shore, providing approved users online access to the K-Chief 600 data. For example, a chief engineer could check primary engine room or other critical parameters any time of day or night from his office. Viewer primary functions are: Displays logged vessel data using a mimic user interface similar to that used by K-Chief 600 systems Displays alarms registered on-board the vessel on a personal computer in the owner/ operatorʼs office ashore Displays a complete history of alarms registered on-board the vessel Provide on-line status of valves (open/closed), equipment (running/ stopped) and similar information regarding other critical systems on-board the vessel Provide owner/operators with an overview of primary vessel data, allowing better shore side support of ships and their crews.

Trends The Trend application provides an effective tool for displaying and trending data in the KChief 600 automation system. This gives the user an effective tool for visualisation of logged data without using an operator station. The Trend application may be used for trending information such as fuel consumption, compressor recycle time, power production and other key parameters in the automation system. The Trend can be utilised in a number of ways, with typical uses being: Recording of specific tags to observe the changes in a selected value over time Aid in tuning controllers Monitoring the condition of vessel components such as the main engine, compressors, pumps and auxiliary engine Providing data for establishing the chain of events leading up to a particular incident Facilitating track keeping of high frequency trends and long term parameter analysis Providing a permanent record or basis for analysis of events such as equipment start/stop or emergency shutdown.

Reports Depending on user privileges, the Report application consists of two modules ‒ the Report Designer and the Report Generator. The Report Designer makes it possible for crew and ship owner to create customised report templates. The Report Generator makes it possible to generate reports for a given time interval based on the templates made by the Report Designer. The Report application also holds a set of predefined reports, such as for active alarms, alarm history, event history, counters and tanks. The Report application can be utilised in a variety of ways. Typical uses are: Automatically generated reports from the automation system, including all connected equipment Documentation of testing of critical alarms, with a complete history of activated alarms Statistic overview of all activated alarm User configured reports for components such as main engine, auxiliary engine and turbo charges.

Data Log Since history of tag information is very limited, the Data Log application is offered to make it possible to store all tag information in the K-Chief 600 system for an extended period of time. The Data Log application is supplied with an easy-to-use configuration program. This allows the user to select the data tags and data formats required, and also to export these data to third party recipients. The Data Log can be utilised in a variety of ways. Typical uses of the application are: Exporting running hours to planned maintenance system Export of tank data to loading computers Export of engine values to diagnostic systems Export of logged data to multiple file formats such as formatted ASCII files, Excel worksheets and binary files

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Standalone hardware bypasses complexity Denmark’s Thrane & Thrane has completed development of several new Sailor mini-C variants, which were made available on the 1 July 2011. There are four new terminals in total: two designed for fishing vessel monitoring, whilst the standalone Ship Security Alert System (SSAS) and Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) terminals are aimed squarely at the commercial shipping sector.

‘Installing standalone SSAS and LRIT terminals on board is proving popular with many operators as it provides a straightforward and reliable method to cover mandatory alerting and tracking requirements, without relying on a vessel’s existing GMDSS mini-C,’ says Thrane & Thrane’s Henrik Dyrholm.

There is a certain percentage of vessels that for redundancy and operational efficiency reasons will choose not to utilise their existing on board equipment and instead choose to install a dedicated terminal, so we have developed our new systems to make achieving this as easy and cost-effective as possible,’ continues Dyrholm.

Multiple addresses The new Thrane & Thrane Sailor 6120 SSAS has multiple address functionality enabling additional messages to be sent directly to, eg, the vessel owner, operator or crew family, in addition to the required flag state and ship owner message in relation to the ISPS code.

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Thrane & Thrane has introduced new standalone ship alert and LRIT mini-C terminals to cater for owners who prefer dedicated hardware over more complex integrated systems

figuration, which can be done remotely or by a Thrane & Thrane technician, have equally been made simpler, and requires no crew interaction.

The 6120 is approved by Inmarsat and all major classification societies and national flag state administrators, and fully meets the requirements listed in IMO MSC. 136 (76) and MSC. 144 (77) under SOLAS resolution XI2/6.

Meanwhile the Sailor 6130 LRIT System is approved by Inmarsat and major flag ASP state administrators. It is fully compliant with the performance requirements described in IMO Resolution MSC.263 (84) (Revised performance standards and functional requirements for the LRIT of Ships) and also IMO Circular MSC.1/Circ.1307 (Guidance on the survey and certification of compliance of ships with the requirement to transmit LRIT information).

Shared enhancements While offering the same benefits towards acceptance and compliance as the

Both Sailor 6120 SSAS (pictured) and 6130 LRIT are compatible with ThraneLINK

legacy system, the 6130 is based on, it shares many of the enhancements also found in the 6120 SSSA. ‘Both terminals use ThraneLINK, our new network protocol, which offers benefits in integration and maintenance by allowing all hardware in a network to communicate more efficiently. For instance, it is possible for engineers to carry out maintenance on any ThraneLINK-enabled equipment from a single point, say, the Sailor 6006 Message Terminal,’ says Dyrholm.

Both terminals use an advanced new Terminal Control Unit. LEDs let operators quickly determine system status such as power, Inmarsat log-in and GPS fix. The terminals themselves feature a self-contained and sealed design, housing both antenna and transceiver, so are built for the outdoor maritime environment and operate using a 50 channel GPS module and high gain omni-directional antenna, so satellite fix and position are ensured even under the most adverse conditions.

Finally, Thrane & Thrane is particularly proud of a new approach to cabling it has introduced for all of its new mini-C terminals. They come complete with all cables and connectors included, making them ready to go out of the box. The standard connection cable to the mini-C terminal is 30m long, but can be extended using low-cost and easily procured NMEA 2000 minicable and the included NMEA 2000 field connector.

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