To All the Ships at Sea

July 1, 2004 By: Jean Marechal GPS World

In recent years Europe, particularly along the Atlantic coastline, has seen a number of disastrous accidents involving oil tankers (Torrey Canyon, Amoco Cadiz, Tanio, Braer, Aegean Sea, Erika and Prestige). These have had catastrophic economic and environmental consequences.

Because of the volume of traffic and the resultant high risk to shipping in European waters, national maritime agencies have introduced ship routing systems, approved by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Improved ship routing has helped to limit the risk of collision. However, the existing systems have limited geographical scope and concentrate on the main zones of traffic convergence without properly covering events that could occur outside the range of radar or shore-based automatic identification system (AIS) centers.

As specified by IMO, AIS is a broadcast system operating in the VHF maritime radio band and capable of sending and receiving ship information such as identity, position, course, speed, ship particulars, and cargo information to and from other ships and shore. It can handle more 2,000 reports per minute and updates information as often as every two seconds. A mandatory implementation schedule depends on the type of the vessel (passenger ships, tankers, 300 gross tonnage vessels, and so forth). The final installations will occur before end of 2004.

In December 2002, the IMO introduced the International Ship and Port Facility (ISPS) code, as an amendment to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) of 1974. IMO also recommended that measures should be introduced at the earliest opportunity to provide long-range identification and tracking of SOLAS vessels. The code, which becomes effective from July 1, 2004, aims to provide defined procedures for maritime security at the ship/port facility interface. Long range identification and tracking of incoming vessel traffic and cargo is therefore an important factor in the assessment of risk and the definition of appropriate security procedures.

In this context, a partnership of public and private organizations (see sidebar, Nauplios Partners) launched the Nauplios demonstration project to evaluate new long-range maritime surveillance services that could benefit from the implementation of Galileo, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) under development by the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The project took place within the European Commission's 5th framework Research and Technological Development (RTD) Program and was subsequently supported by the Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU). This article describes the Nauplios project and the results from recently completed six-month demonstration period, with particular focus on the positioning, navigation, vessel tracking, and surveillance aspects of the project.

Project Goals

Nauplios set out to demonstrate new services that would improve maritime surveillance and search and rescue capabilities (See the sidebar "Nauplios Services."). For the project team, the lengthy demonstration period allowed it to implement a measure of fine tuning to the system in accordance with the operators' recommendations and to configure test scenarios to fully exercise the functionality of the system in accordance with normal operating procedures.

New services defined for the project by Direction des Affaires Maritimes et des Gens de Mer (DAMGM, the French Maritime Authorities) covered several aspects:

1. Surveillance over a large area (see Figure 1). The outer boundary of the Nauplios project was set at around 400 nautical miles (740kilometers or 460miles) from the Atlantic coast of Europe. This distance was intended to represent a one-day journey for the average vessel and to allow preventive actions, which may be required under by abnormal situations to be taken.
2. Automatic adjustment of surveillance level in accordance with predefined rules for different zones and activation of dynamic surveillance when required by land-based watch officers, in order to follow specific vessels more closely.
3. Automatic collection and transmission of data regarding the vessel, the voyage and the cargoes (including dangerous goods), in addition to the normal identification and tracking data.

FIGURE 1 Nauplios demonstration area

New search and rescue (SAR) services to improve the position determination of Emergency Position Indicating Radiobeacons (EPIRBs) and to test the return link in SAR/Galileo (from the shore to the beacons). Better and quicker positioning capabilities are expected to improve the detection of legitimate distress calls and to reduce the time spent in management of false alerts, which represent more than 90 percent of EPIRB messages received. The return link allows for the provision of two services: remote activation and deactivation of beacons and the acknowledgement of receipt of the distress call, including rescue information or false-alert confirmation request.