The outlook for e-navigation

Handling change and innovation

The world has moved from the industrial age to the digital age. Lately the term “shift age” has been used to refer to our migration towards a world of constant, rapid change and increased connectivity and availability. The speed of innovation has increased tremendously in the last 10 years, and exponentially in the last 50 years. In the maritime world, the inception of electronic navigation is a prime example of how to pre-empt and address critical innovations in a structured manner with broad stakeholder engagement.

Innovation is an integral part of e-navigation and the concept can only be successful if it balances the need for newness with the need for ensuring the quality and usability of any technology or processes. Constant innovation will also change how performance standards are handled. It is widely understood that the current electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS) performance standard is restricting innovation, as its updating and certification concept is not geared to meet the needs of e-navigation. This is now being addressed in the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) adoption of the IHO S-100 hydrographic data model as the basis for the Common Maritime Data Structure (CMDS) in e-navigation.

Understanding complexity

Increasing complexity and interrelatedness is another important trend. In order to carry out essential tasks, we have to quickly familiarise ourselves with new surroundings, circumstances and facts. To do that, we need swift and easy access to more information.

For a mariner, this can be gathering digital chart, weather, piracy and ship performance data in order to re-route a ship faced by a hurricane or other circumstances. For a ship in a clogged shipping lane encountering a newly built wind farm, it might involve collecting navigational data such as virtual Aids to Navigation (AtoN) and Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) to maintain the necessary situational awareness.

Embracing collaboration

Maritime authorities are realising that they need to adapt to the speed of change as well as coping with the growing complexity of today’s society. With e-navigation the maritime community is attempting to master this situation. Inter-governmental authorities including the IMO and International Hydrographic Organization are increasingly involving non-governmental organizations such as the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) and Comité International Radio-Maritime (CIRM) as well as industry partners, well aware that they are better versed in handling innovation and managing change. A growing number of maritime companies are participating in public-private cooperation and new multi-party alliances, sharing their innovation skills and adaptability experience in order to address the demands of today’s changing maritime reality.

Integrated data: the backbone of e-navigation

As e-navigation gains traction the importance of integrated data, both static and dynamic, becomes increasingly apparent. IALA and IHO, supported by CIRM, have proposed the IHO GI Register (or S-100 Register) as the conceptual basis for the Common Maritime Data Structure (CMDS). Using this common understanding of key players in the e-navigation arena, the IMO e-Navigation Correspondence Group has firmed up the overarching architecture. That has enabled a series of test beds aimed at integrating various data streams to afford improved communication between stakeholders on shore or at sea.

If correctly developed and executed, the integration into a single e-navigation display of pre-composed, expert-generated navigational data and real time or semi-real time input (such as virtual AtoNs, data from tide gauges or maritime safety information received from a vessel traffic service) will enable increased situational awareness for mariners and shoreside staff alike.

The new e-navigation framework aims to integrate and harmonise a growing number of data streams to create the information needed to increase situational awareness. This is changing the way systems are managed, type approved and (more importantly) how they handle and render chart data.

Hydrography and cartography

The e-navigation scenario will also change how hydrography and cartography fit together. While changes in IMO’s regulatory framework will need to be developed over time, the trend is towards a concept that defines conditions and regulatory requirements while avoiding over-specification, thus allowing for innovation.

The basis for chart products is currently generated by hydrographic organisations (HO) or associated organisations that conduct surveys to provide bathymetric data layers. Together with information about navigational aids they create the foundation for navigational data. These basic data sets are enriched by information on navigation-related objects as well as procedural and regulatory information needed for a safe passage provided by organisations such as coastal administrations or port masters.

Cartographers then combine this static data to create a chart or publication. They also verify that the data sets do not conflict and compose them for ease of use. The resulting charts and publications are stand-alone products with no interoperability.

This method was also adopted in the chart-centric paradigm of ECDIS and electronic navigational charts (ENC). HOs prepare pre-composed charts of certain scale bands, which have an intended use and appropriate zoom factors, thereby defining the look and feel as well as the appropriate rendering of ENCs in a type-approved ECDIS. Any ‘value-added data’ may form an ‘overlay’, but it cannot be fully integrated with ENC data.

Today both static and dynamic data sets are available, but the different data streams may not be integrated as they may come from different sources. More data does not always result in better information and improved knowledge, and also carries a risk of data overload. To solve this, the different data streams must be integrated and prepared for use to ensure they reach the mariner as meaningful information.

For example, real-time water level information must be combined with static shore information, and static navigational aid information must be combined with AIS AtoN information. In this way, the various data streams will be integrated as a “nautical data collection”. Updating of these integrated data streams must also be synchronised to avoid conflicts from misalignment of the various components.

A smart future

The ongoing development of electronic cartography in the maritime world has taken a step towards situational awareness and evolved away from simple chart display. This development will intensify and will require a change in how digital maritime information is developed, composed and stored. The future demands integrated static and dynamic data streams that support data integration and situational-centric rendering.

With this development, a mariner or fleet manager will get the information necessary to ensure a safe and efficient voyage whenever and however it’s needed. While all of this is already technically possible and well underway, e-navigation needs to be supported by a regulatory change away from a framework defining detailed implementation aspects. Regulation should specify the “what” while leaving the “how” open to innovation through ever-evolving technology.

Michael Bergmann was elected as president of CIRM in 2013. He works closely companies across the maritime sector, and with several international organisations, to support advanced navigation, efficiency and safety at sea.