EMERGING TECHNOLOGY: Sensing the future

ON THE back of the continued push for global logistics and end-to-end supply chain management, there is a growing acceptance of the optimisation and yield on offer to the shipping industry, and ultimately, to exporters and consumers through greater uptake, use and reliance on technology.

While a future global shipping management system is far from defined let alone implemented, we can take a brief look into the possible functions and parts of any future solution. Putting aside the differences between ocean-based and other forms of transport, it is likely an intelligent transport system (ITS) for the sea would be the core enabler for a truly global optimised ocean vessel network.

What would this look like you might ask? The answer is it could be anything. If we look at some current and emerging technology, however, we can perhaps gain a small glimpse of what a future ITS of the sea consists of, and perhaps then, come away with the view that it’s potentially much more feasible than we think. While there’s currently no set way to define this system, one approach is to break the system down to subsystems or major blocks such as communications, detection and tracking, weather and ocean dynamics, onboard systems and data convergence.

Given the immense breadth of existing and new technology that fits into the above, we’ll limit the focus to a selection of new or currently underutilised technologies.

Communications

Let’s start with coastal long-term evolution (LTE) which uses cellular services and already has a significant take up in numerous countries for maritime applications and provides a reliable high speed and high bandwidth network (when in coverage). Similarly, digital mobile radios offer many advantages over analogue systems including improved spectrum efficiency, more channels, advanced data features and higher security, which make them ideal for an ocean ITS. Like coastal LTE, however, the best features are reliant on base stations.

Looking beyond terrestrial solutions, we have the exponential growth in low earth orbit (LEO) satellites. Through their growing constellations, the LEO networks offer faster, greater and cheaper capacity compared with traditional satellites and could possibly surpass the use of terrestrial systems in the future. Pushing the thinking, satellite-based laser communications offer efficient and high-speed communications for remote areas, with increased resilience to interception and interference and thus are attractive and feasible where security is critical.

Detection and Tracking

While maritime solid-state radars continue to develop greater detection capability at increasing ranges, the game changers for an ocean ITS are likely the developments in ‘passive’ vessel detection. Radio frequency (RF) passive detection comes in several forms, with one method being the capture of the target's reflections from ambient transmissions bouncing through the atmosphere, while the other method being the capture and analyses of the direct RF transmissions from the target's systems such as radios and navigation radars.

Non RF passive detection has several forms also and includes vessel detection through advanced digital signal processing (DSP) of imagery sourced from various sensors, analysis of ocean surface disturbance detecting a ship's wake — leading to tracking and identification of vessels, and the monitoring of undersea fibre cables for seabed vibrations caused by vessel noise and movement, with this data able to yield vessel position, speed and course.

Weather and Ocean Dynamics

Complementing infrastructure and/or buoy-mounted weather and metocean equipment, satellites can capably detect ocean weather via various sensors, with current dynamics, wind speed, wave height, wave velocity, sea surface temperature and sea level all able to be measured. The advances in communication described previously aid in making this data available in real time and thus able to be processed by ever improving dynamic systems providing minimum safe water depth and enabling maximisation of vessel draft.

Onboard Systems

Many readers will be familiar with contemporary portable pilot units (PPU) in providing enhanced situational awareness, with this usage traditionally tied to when marine pilots are onboard. The integrated ship data together with the PPU real time generated motion data provides a highly accurate position, speed, course and motion vectors, which are all able to be exported where data connectivity exists.

On the ships’ own systems, we are seeing increased usage of the voyage data recorder for non-traditional tasks. While the VDR’s primary purpose remains to record and store critical ships data for safety and analysis, recent trials and advances in networking have shown the VDR as a wonderful interface and integration point for making vessel data available in real time, with these developments now driving the design of the next generation of VDRs to make them even more capable for integration and broader usage.

Finally, the ongoing development of increasingly capable and relatively cheap internet of things (IoT) devices together with the availability of real time connectivity will provide access to a growing array of ships' systems, machinery and data.

Convergence

Derived from the various sensors described above, transported over modern and ever improving communications networks, and stored and made available by the cloud, at some point we could have real time access to a literal ocean of maritime data.

With the correct data integration and correlation, the data becomes an immensely rich, unified and valuable dataset not previously available. This new data construct which can include current and historical data, enables a much deeper data analysis, which combined with advances in artificial intelligence, statistical algorithms and machine learning, will enable a significant increase in the detection of patterns. Using these enhanced patterns, there is a far greater capability for machine-based predictions and thus enhanced decision support both onboard the vessel and remotely.

All of the above can come together to form the basis of an ITS for the sea that can increase safety, boost productivity and efficiency, reduce emissions and aid in the preservation of the environment.

This article appeared in the October| November edition of DCN Magazine