The ability to deploy safe, reliable, and accurate autonomous shipping technology is being propelled forward thanks to a project that will guarantee uninterrupted data connectivity at sea, according to an article published on their website.
About the project
Remote-control technology and Service provider for unmanned and crew-reduced shipping SEAFAR is integrating neXat, a satellite communications services platform, into its remote ship navigation solution for the short sea shipping (SSS) industry.
The two-year project is co-funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) and is being tested at sea together with a Belgian short-sea shipping company that has lines sailing in the Baltic Sea and from Spain to the UK and Antwerp, Belgium. The initial scope of the project is to integrate 4G and 5G with satellite communications into an ubiquitous, fully managed connectivity service allowing the critical operations of autonomous shipping.
neXat’s platform will ensure that connectivity coverage is not lost by automatically and quickly switching from 4G or 5G to satellite as required. This means that real-time data, including camera feeds performance monitoring, and navigational information is continuously shared and ensures increased situational awareness in SEAFAR’s Remote Operations Center. The unique next monitoring and management functionalities will also be integrated into the SEAFAR dashboards to provide captains with all the monitoring and management information necessary to ensure the required solution reliability.
The solution – called SeaNext – will also monitor all available networks, providing a connectivity ‘heatmap’, allowing ship owners and service providers to plan for coverage black spots in remote locations.
The connection between the remote operations centre and the vessel uses 4G or 5G and in the case of unavailability of a terrestrial network, satellite communications are used and provided by neXat. 5G is used for higher bandwidths to send sensor data.
neXat’s platform will provide monitoring information through APIs for SEAFAR to collect in a machine-to-machine format and integrate into its dashboard for the remote captain to access. neXat will also develop a system that continuously monitors all the communications means that the ship might use at any time, including 4G,5G, and satellite. The result is a heatmap of the availability of different telecommunications technologies as well as the quality and performance of the connections.
The space assets that will be utilized in Sea Next are SatNAV, SatAIS, and SatCOM. SatNAV for vessel positioning using GNSS receivers is also used. This capability is crucial as GNSS receivers can receive signals from multiple satellite systems, meaning improved positioning accuracy.
SAT-AIS will be utilized for providing situational awareness to the remote captains where the vessel is out of the coverage range of ground AIS stations. This technology permits vessels to transmit and receive information about nearby vessels and their movement. This feature is particularly valuable for avoiding collisions and increasing safety.
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Source: neXat
