969

1 INTRODUCTION

At present, much attention is paid to the development

of remote monitoring systems for the navigational

situation and the state of ship control systems, since

with the current level of development of

telecommunication systems and the functionality of

ship complexes and assemblies, the ability to remotely

monitor the navigation situation and the condition of

ship control systems can significantly increase the

efficiency of solutions data vessels practical tasks.

From the latest developments in this area, several

of the most significant technical solutions can be

distinguished.

So, the known monitoring system for moving

objects "Impulse-GLONASS / GPS: Water Transport",

which allows monitoring of small vessels [1]. The

monitoring system for moving objects is built on a

modular basis.

Monitoring systems are known that make it

possible to monitor the condition of ship units and to

remotely control their operation.

In particular, Altair LLC offers a software and

hardware complex for a ship monitoring system

designed for automated monitoring of a ship’s power

plant and monitoring the location of river and mixed

(river-sea) vessels [2].

Transas vessel traffic control systems are modern

automated systems used to improve the safety of

navigation, the safety of life at sea and protect the

environment from possible negative consequences of

shipping, as well as improve the efficiency of

navigation and cargo transportation [3]. Ship traffic

control systems provide users with a variety of

navigation information, allow the identification and

tracking of ships and other navigation objects in

terrestrial waters, and also plan shipping in terrestrial

waters.

Using Wi-Fi Data Link to Create the Navigation

Situation Monitoring and Ship Control System

I. Afonin, V. Iskiv, Y. Mickhayluck, A. Schekaturin, I. Skorik & E. Redkina

Sevastopol State University, Sevastopol, Russia

ABSTRACT: The article considers methods for constructing systems for remote monitoring of the navigation

situation and the state of ship control systems. Variants of building a system for remote monitoring of the

navigation situation and the state of control systems of the ship have been developed; hardware implementation

of the monitoring system has been developed, parts of which are the nodes of the local network. Wireless

network model of the system has been developed. A stand of the on-board part of the monitoring system was

developed and manufactured, its experimental study was carried out, which confirmed the effectiveness of the

solution used. Modeling of the coverage areas of the system for various conditions of using the monitoring

system has been performed.

http://www.transnav.eu

the International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 14

Number 4

December 2020

DOI: 10.12716/1001.14.04.23

970

In the field of electronic navigation, global

improvements are also underway. For example, the

International Maritime Organization is developing

and implementing the concept of e-Navigation. The

concept involves improving the safety of shipping all

over the world through the active use of modern

technologies, increasing the information support of

ships and terrestrial services, and improving the

exchange of navigation data between them [4].

In 2013, the Russian company ZAO KB NAVIS

developed and certified in the marine and river

shipping registers a shipborne GNSS GLONASS / GPS

combined receiver-indicator type SN-5703 with a

monitoring function [5]. A distinctive feature of the

transceiver is the ability to build on its basis

monitoring systems for sea and river vessels of

various sizes and internal organization, suitable for a

small number of special purpose ships, and

integration into existing global coverage monitoring

systems, both departmental and public companies.

The currently used systems for monitoring the

navigational situation and the state of the ship’s

control systems have, as a rule, a low-speed

communication channel between the ship and

terrestrial subsystems or are characterized by

significant complexity and cost, as well as narrow

specialization, therefore, the urgent task is to develop

a system for remote monitoring of the navigational

situation and condition ship control systems having a

high-speed data channel that allows streaming video

transmission.

2 BLOCK DIAGRAM OF REMOTE MONITORING

OF NAVIGATION SITUATION AND STATE OF

VESSEL CONTROL SYSTEMS

The remote monitoring system of the navigation

situation and the state of the ship's control systems

should transmit from board to shore information

about the state of the ship's equipment, the readings

of ship instruments, as well as video information

about the situation around the ship and audio

information from external and internal microphones.

Onshore, this information should be displayed in a

form that is convenient and familiar to the operator.

The structural diagram of the remote monitoring

system of the navigation situation and the state of the

ship control systems should have a terrestrial

subsystem and an onboard (ship) subsystem

communicating via a communication channel, as

shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Block diagram of a system with different

communication channels.

3 ON-BOARD SUBSYSTEM OF THE REMOTE

MONITORING SYSTEM

The onboard subsystem should have the following

elements:

− shaper of group information signal, which

converts heterogeneous signals from all systems of

the vessel into a single group digital signal;

− a modem that generates a signal with a given type

and modulation parameters for transmission

through the communication channel and

demodulates the signal received from the

communication channel;

− a control computer that transmits the generated

group information signal to the modem and

receives

− a signal from the modem for transmission to the

driver of the control signals.

The block diagram of the onboard subsystem is

shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Block diagram of the onboard subsystem.

The group information signal generator is a set of

adapters that converts digital signals into discrete or

analog signals of the required amplitude and power

for discrete or proportional (analog) control of

actuators (relays, motors, etc.). The block diagram of

this unit depends on the composition of the

equipment and will be different for each vessel.

It is possible to use an integrated ship bridge. In

this case, a remote control system can be used, most of

the signals are already brought to the same interface

and standard, and a specialized controller with an

interface converter is used as a shaper of the group

information signal.

A data recorder can be used as a shaper of a group

information signal. In this case, most sensors are

equipped with the necessary adapters, and their

signals are grouped into a single digital stream, which

is recorded by the recorder. The functional diagram of

the group information signal shaper is shown in

Figure 3.

Data recorders are equipped with the necessary

network interfaces for connecting to control

computers and modems.

971

The signals from sensors equipped with various

interfaces in the interface converter are brought to a

single digital form and then fed to the registration

units and the group signal shaper.

The registration unit records the current

information, saves it for a predetermined time interval

and allows you to search and access it upon request.

Figure 3. Group information signal shaper.

The group signal generator generates a signal of a

uniform standard from heterogeneous digital signals,

suitable for transmission, and sends this signal via the

onboard transmitter to the terrestrial subsystem.

4 TERRESTRIAL SUBSYSTEM OF REMOTE

MONITORING SYSTEM

The block diagram of the terrestrial subsystem is

shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Block diagram of the terrestrial subsystem.

The subsystem uses several monitors, each of

which displays its own type of information.

The terrestrial receiver receives the radio signals

transmitted by the onboard subsystem, detects them

and transmits to the group signal decoder.

The group signal decoder extracts individual

components from the general group signal — video

signals, audio signals, information signals from ship’s

sensors and transmits them to display, display and

playback devices.

The video information display device displays on

the screens information from video cameras and

monitors of a ship’s locator, navigation and other

computers.

The audio information reproducing device

reproduces sounds perceived by the microphones of

the on-board subsystem.

The sensor status indicator displays the status of

sensors of various ship systems and devices.

5 MODELING THE OPERATION OF A SYSTEM

FOR REMOTE MONITORING

The simulation of the operation of the remote

monitoring system of the navigational situation and

the state of ship control systems was performed using

the Cisco Packet Tracer software product. The main

switching nodes of the network of the terrestrial and

onboard system of the system are formed (see Figure

5), the IP addressing of the infocommunication

network of the remote control system is developed, is

presented in Table 1 - 2.

Figure 5. Wireless network model of a system for remote

monitoring of the navigation situation and the status of ship

control systems.

Table 1. IP addressing of the network of the onboard

complex of the remote control system.

_______________________________________________

On-board system:

_______________________________________________

Ubiquiti Bullet M2 HP Bridge 192.168.1.2

LAN gateway 192.168.1.20 (trunk)

Zuxel Keenetic Ultra II Internet 192.168.1.21 (trunk)

LAN gateway 192.168.2.1 (trunk)

Controller 1 192.168.2.51 (vlan 10)

Controller 2 192.168.2.52(vlan 10)

Controller 3 192.168.2.53(vlan 10)

Ubiquiti Edge LAN gateway 192.168.2.54 (trunk)

Router™X LAN gateway 192.168.3.1 (trunk)

IP Webcamera 1 192.168.3.6 (vlan 11)

IP Webcamera 2 192.168.3.5 (vlan 11)

Registrar 192.168.3.4 (vlan 12)

Shaper 192.168.3.3 (vlan 12)

_______________________________________________

972

Table 2. IP addressing of the network of the terrestrial

complex of the remote control system.

_______________________________________________

Terrestrial system:

_______________________________________________

Ubiquiti Bullet M2 HP Bridge 192.168.1.1

LAN gateway 192.168.1.20 (trunk)

Zuxel Keenetic Ultra II Internet 192.168.1.21 (trunk)

LAN gateway 192.168.4.1 (trunk)

Terminal 1 192.168.4.10

Terminal 2 192.168.4.11

_______________________________________________

To simulate Ubiquiti Edge Router ™ X in a

network emulator, two network nodes are used: a

switch and a router.

Settings of the Zuxel Keenetic Ultra II router of the

terrestrial system: Internet Setup IP address

192.168.1.21, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, Gateway

default 192.168.1.20; Network Setup IP address

192.168.4.1, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, security type

WPA2 Personal, AES encryption.

Settings for the Zuxel Keenetic Ultra II router on-

board system: Internet Settings - IP address

192.168.1.21, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, LAN Settings

- IP address 192.168.2.1, subnet mask 255.255.255.0;

Wireless Settings - channel 6, WPA2-PSK

authentication, AES encryption.

6 SIMULATION OF COVERAGE AREAS

Based on the analysis of the characteristics of

communication systems, we will determine the initial

data for modeling the marine communication channel

of the remote monitoring system of the navigation

situation and the status of the ship control systems:

− frequency 2.4 GHz;

− transmitter output power 1 W;

− the sensitivity of the receiver at a transmission rate

of 24 Mb/s is 83 dBm; at a transmission rate of 54

Mb/s, it is –75 dBm.

The results of simulation the coverage areas using

directional antennas and different heights of elevation

of antennas are shown in Figures 6-10.

Figure 6. Height above sea level is 11 meters, antenna lifting

height is 2 meters, directed antennas.

Figure 7. Height above sea level is 11 meters, antenna lifting

height is 15 meters, directed antennas.

Figure 8. Height above sea level is 20 meters, antenna lifting

height is 2 meters, directed antennas.

Figure 9. Height above sea level is 20 meters, antenna lifting

height is 15 meters, directed antennas.

973

Figure 10. Height above sea level is 20 meters, antenna

lifting height is 15 meters, dipole antennas.

7 EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH

The stand was developed using a Wi-Fi data channel.

Onshore and onboard subsystems use MaxLink 01-

VS-M15 Wi-Fi antennas, Ubiquiti Bullet M2 HP Wi-Fi

adapters and routers (Zuxel Keenetic Ultra II).

Ubiquiti POE-24-24W-G are used as POE injectors for

Bullet M2 HP.

The blocks for decoding, generating control

signals, displaying video information, playing audio

information, indicating the status of sensors are

implemented on the basis of computers and their

peripheral devices.

In the on-board subsystem, the EMV-800HD video

recorder was used. The signal conditioning unit also

includes VGA-AV (VGA to VIDEO) video converters,

which allows you to convert the usual standard VGA

(D-sub) signal, which is used in almost all monitors of

marine radar, navigation, sonar, etc. systems into a

video signal Video standard PAL or NTSC to register

this signal with the DVR.

The onboard subsystem also includes three

STM32F746 Discovery controllers. These controllers

are used to organize the management of on-board

systems and systems, for which interface blocks are

also provided that support CAN Bus and Ethernet.

The high-performance Ubiquiti Edge Router ™ X

router allows you to connect a number of peripheral

devices and a signal conditioning unit to the on-board

subsystem.

The image from the video cameras was transmitted

from the onboard subsystem of the stand to the video

cameras of the terrestrial subsystem and made it

possible to track the movement of ships in the

Streletskaya bay of Sevastopol. According to the

measurement results at distances from 850 m to 3 km,

the total data transfer rate was from 4.7 Mbit/s to 0.9

Mbit/s.

The test bench of the onboard subsystem is shown

in the figure 11.

Figure 11. Test bench of the onboard subsystem.

8 CONCLUSION

The developed system allows monitoring the

navigational situation, including by transmitting

video information from the ship, and the status of the

small ship control systems at a distance of several

kilometers from the coast subsystem when using a

Wi-Fi data channel and thousands of kilometers when

using satellite communication channels. The

developed monitoring system can be part of the

crewless ship management system. The system is

simple and very flexible due to the inclusion of

system elements as nodes of a local network and the

use of programmable controllers, which allows you to

change the composition and purpose of the system

parts. The monitoring system provides a data transfer

rate sufficient to transmit video data from cameras

installed on the ship.

REFERENCES

[1] The monitoring system for moving objects "Impulse-

GLONASS / GPS: Water Transport" for the management

of water transport,

http://24glonass.ru/solutions/vodnyy-transport/vodnyy-

transport

[2] Control of sea and river transport,

https://www.sirius.su/catalog/glonass-gps-

trackery/otraslevye-resheniya/shipenergy

[3] Ship traffic control systems,

http://www.poseidon.su/products/suds.html

[4] Ship monitoring systems in the concept of E-Navigation

Speaker: Milyakov D.F. VII International Forum

“Communıcatıons on the sea and rıver - 2011”,

https://officemagazine.ru/auto/50372

[5] Milyakov D.F. Testing SN-5703 for monitoring ships,

https://www.korabel.ru/news/comments/aprobaciya_sn-

5703_dlya_monitoringa_sudov.html