Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
ITO Isao NYK Transport Research Institute, Researcher, 研究員
KIDO Hachiro Marine Technical College, Professor, 機関科, 助教授
KOBAYASHI Eiichi Mitsubishi Nagasaki R&D Center, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Research manager, 長崎研究所, 主務
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Research Abstract |
As to a countermeasure to improve safety of ship navigation in congested waterways, the concept of Virtual Vessel Traffic Service (V-VTS) is established and developed. V-VTS is made of a database server set up on land and individual PC installed on board. Each ship sends own ship's information such as her position and waypoints to the server. In return the server sends information of those which are nearby her. On board the ship master can recognize information of other ships just like radar, but with much more information. Besides, the server has a function of automatic navigation subsystem. If required, the server can provide suitable operational guidance to the master such as collision avoidance manoeuvre. Marine traffic simulation system was developed to confirm the effectiveness , the applicability and feasibility of the V-VTS.It is convinced that the system is quite useful, but it should be combined with precise GPS system. Furthermore, AIS (Automatic Identification System) which will be obliged to install for large ships from 2002 by IMO (International Maritime Organization) can be used for the communication tool between the server and the individual ship. Finally, if it is connected with MARTIS (Marine Traffic Information Service, normally equivalent facility with VTS), the system and VTS will be compensate each other, i.e. the system can obtain ship data only available from radar and VTS can get information available through AIS transmission. From the practical point of view, it is expected to meet with some non-technical problems such as security, but it is worthy to investigate this direction of further research. For the AIS communication, the capacity of the transmission is another factor to be checked. At this moment, it is found the present requirement meets for congested waterways, but it will be soon reach to the limit, considering further applications such as future e-shipping business and management.
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