Across various industries, companies are increasingly incorporating more technology into their operations and the maritime industry is no different, as shippers now employ data programs to track cargo vessels and use artificial intelligence to perform organizational tasks.
Some of the more exciting advances happening in the maritime industry have been in the development of navigation technology as mariners abandon paper charts in favor of electronic charting display and information systems, or ECDIS, serving not only as the primary means of navigation, but also as a backup.
“Marine technology has been getting more and more advanced in both the recreational and commercial maritime markets,” said James McGowan, a senior marketing manager with Raymarine, a global seller of marine electronics for boats.
“Today’s vessels are more sophisticated than ever before, fitted with a wide range of technologies from electronic charts and radar to advanced systems monitoring and integration, night-vision systems, and solutions for communications and fast internet connectivity,” McGowan said.
Here’s a look at new and emerging navigation equipment for commercial maritime vessels.
Advanced Navigation
Known for its innovation in Al robotics and navigation technologies, Australia-based Advanced Navigation has developed various technological solutions, including a range of Inertial Navigation Systems (INS).
One is the Digital Fibre-Optic Gyroscope (DFOG), which features ultra-fast gyro-compassing and the ability to determine highly accurate heading without any reliance on magnetic heading or global navigation satellite systems (GNSS).
Advanced Navigation recently provided a DFOG system to a customer manufacturing submersibles and underwater vessels. Since GNSS signals can’t penetrate in water, the DFOG system was able to support the customer’s vessels with precise underwater navigation in depths beyond 328 feet, according to the company.
The Hydrus AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle), a micro AUV that’s about 20 inches long and weighs about 15 pounds, flexed its capabilities earlier this year when it was deployed to a Rottnest ship graveyard in the Indian Ocean, off the Western Australia coast.
Hydrus was able to capture video and other imagery of a 64-meter shipwreck on the seafloor.
“Surveying shipwrecks is one of the potential-use cases,” Advanced Navigation data engineer Peter Roberts said. “It’s quite a novel use case, but Hydrus can be used for inspecting seabeds (and other) areas of environmental concern such as reefs. And we’re getting a lot of interest from customers for inspecting port facilities and offshore facilities.”
The company has been vocal about the rise in GNSS spoofing, or the act of sending fake signals to a GNSS transponder as a means of electronic warfare.
“They think they’re in one place where they’re actually not, and this has led to really serious issues,” Roberts said.
Advanced Navigation offers AI-driven inertial navigation systems as a solution for GNSS-denied environments, combining “temperature-calibrated accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers and pressure sensors with state-of-the-art RTK GNSS receivers,” according to the company.
“Being able to have a very accurate INS solution allows all terrestrial navigation including maritime navigation to use this … to negate the effects of this GNSS spoofing or jamming, so you can avoid some of those risks,” Roberts said. “And especially with the conflicts that we’re seeing in Europe, there is just a great increase in these types of attacks or interferences.”
The company also developed the Subsonus USBL (Ultra-Short Baseline), a small underwater acoustic positioning system that offers high-accuracy position, velocity and heading of up to 3,281 feet.
It has a calibrated hydrophone array paired with an internal tightly coupled INS, packed into a hand-held titanium enclosure.
The company has been working with a number of U.S West Coast customers across various sectors, including marine and ocean research, surveying, environmental conservation, aquaculture, maritime and shipping.
Advanced Navigation also has an ongoing business relationship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The company recently collaborated with NOAA on the agency’s Ocean Technology Development Tank in San Diego on a demonstration of the Hydrus autonomous underwater vehicle to potential customers.
The demonstration highlighted Hydrus’ mission-planning feature, deployment and recovery procedure and photogrammetry capabilities, according to the company.
Roberts said he’s excited about the company’s product solutions, including those related to subsea solutions such as Hydrus.
“We’ve had people come to us with interest in looking at dams to keep up the maintenance requirements there,” he said. “There are areas that we haven’t considered but certainly the interest from customers is really opening up. Sort of a brave new world.”
Furuno
Global marine electronics manufacturer Furuno, which has U.S. West Coast offices in Camas, Wash., recently came out with a new planning station, the PS-100.
For a long time, mariners would use a planning station as a chart table to draw out routes and other notations before transferring that information over to the ECDIS for navigation.
The PS-100 now allows mariners to connect the planning station to a multi-touch display that could be as large as 55 inches and use it as a digital chart table, Bart Disher, the national commercial business development manager for Furuno USA, told Pacific Maritime.
“And because it’s on the navigation network, it can sync that directly to the primary navigation ECDIS and it seamlessly sends everything over,” Disher said. “All of a sudden they don’t have to do any more route transfers. They don’t have to manually input anything else. They do it at the planning station and it goes right over to the navigation system.”
The technology’s currently being used by some of Furuno’s cruise customers, as well as newbuild research vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, Disher said.
Furuno has a number of ongoing projects on the West Coast, including its work with Washington State Ferries to retrofit the agency’s full fleet with Furuno bridges.
“Those will have dual chart radars at both ends (of the ferries) with full satellite compass, full AIS (automatic identification systems),” Disher said.
Furuno is also working with West Coast tug-and-barge operator Sause Bros. on a chart radar solution so the company can be fully paperless compliant.
Sause Bros. is also participating in another Furuno project: the introduction of Furuno’s NAVpilot-1000, an autopilot that can be hooked up to an analog steering system or solenoid steering system, often used for large vessels, according to Furuno.
“It’s our first really commercially-oriented autopilot,” Disher said, adding that Sause Bros. is expected to receive the first 12 of the NAVpilot-1000s when its vessels go in for refits in the next four to six months.
Meanwhile, Furuno and a number of partners in Japan have been working on the development of a fully autonomous ship project, administered by the Nippon Foundation, known as MEGURI2040.
Furuno is providing the electronics for the demonstrations of three autonomous vessels, including the FAR3000 Chart Radar, FMD3200 ECDIS, FA170 AIS, GP170 GPS Navigator and FE800 IMO Echo Sounder. These are all routed through a unit “to process navigation actions in response to input sensor data,” according to Furuno.
Through the project, Furuno and other participating companies are studying the commercial viability of fully autonomous vessels, exploring factors such as deregulation, freight rates and insurance.
While there’s a push for fully autonomous vessels, the need for personnel is not going away anytime soon, Disher said.
“I still think there’s going to be companies and customers out there that want to have professional navigators in the wheelhouse at all times,” he said. “They want to have specially trained and educated captains and personnel and mates and deckhands on board to ensure that these systems can operate properly.”
Raymarine
The Raymarine brand is a new entry in the commercial maritime space. The New Hampshire-based company, which specializes in high-performance electronics for marine first responders and law enforcement, comes into the market with a solid foundation built on world-class technologies and relationships with other leading providers, the company’s senior marketing manager for the Americas, James McGowan, said.
For nearly a decade, Raymarine has been a key supplier of navigation electronics to the U.S. Coast Guard.
“They are an extremely demanding customer when it comes (to) product reliability and ease-of-use,” McGowan said. “We’ve been able to take many lessons learned in this valuable partnership and apply them to our next-generation commercial marine products.”
Raymarine is also a sister company to some heavyweights in the commercial maritime space, he said, adding that the company is part of the maritime group at Teledyne-FLIR which manufactures thermal and optical marine camera systems for vessels of all sizes.
Raymarine is also a sister company to ChartWorld Group, the leading provider of ECDIS systems and electronic charts to commercial vessels around the world.
The first Raymarine-branded commercial product to hit the market is its new Pathfinder Commercial Radar, which made a big splash at the International Workboat Show when it was launched last fall, McGowan said.
“It’s a real game-changer because it is a solid-state radar designed for superior performance, easy installation and long-term reliability,” he said. “Captains, mates, maintainers and vessel-owners alike have been very interested in getting this system onboard their vessels.”
Pathfinder is type-approved for SOLAS CAT-2 and CAT-3 vessels less than 10,000 gross tons, which makes it a great fit for thousands of workboats, ferries, towboats, tugs and more, he said.
One of the models that enabled its sister company ChartWorld to grow so rapidly was ECDIS-as-a-Service, McGowan said.
Rather than purchasing hardware, the subscription-based model allows vessel owners to fit-out with a state-of-the-art navigation system that receives regular updates and upgrades, included within the subscription fee.
Raymarine plans to offer the Pathfinder radar on a similar program, which makes the total cost of ownership quite low, McGowan explained, adding that it also ensures the systems and vessels are always compliant and updated, and provides peace of mind that the vessels systems are always ready to get underway.
Raymarine anticipates that the adoption of the new radar system will grow quickly on the West Coast, McGowan said.
“We’re really looking forward to connecting with key players in the West Coast commercial marine sector and showing them how the Raymarine Pathfinder and other products in our portfolio can really make a difference for their day-to-day operations,” he said.
Karen Robes Meeks can be reached at karen@maritimepublishing.com