Research

The aim of this project is to develop an Electronic Navigation aid to vessels specifically on Safe and Smart Artic Navigation assistance to Mariners. Benefits to ship operators are Reduction in distance from Asia to North Europe and the Baltic. Reduce Sues Canal surcharge, delays, fuel consumption, charter hire and most importantly the carbon footprint. SMART E-Nav conceived to be a decision-making system that uses actual ice conditions, ship’s ice class and ship’s characteristics (engine capacity, draft and disposition) to calculate waypoints based on the degree of impedance (resistance) in an ice field.

Reduce distance from Asia to North Europe and the Baltic. Reduce Sues Canal surcharge, delays, fuel consumption, charter hire and most importantly the carbon footprint.

Tactical voyage planning seems to be the most cost effective and easily implementable solution to mitigate risk that enhances the route selection by charting a path of least resistance due to sea-ice. The concept provides a digital solution to the ship-navigator based upon computing sea- ice resistance relative to the ship’s motive power and ice regime as available from digital sea-ice data. It is end-user friendly and cost effective in a vast region where costly infrastructure development will take decades to fructify. Electronic navigation (e-navigation) systems and components could be utilized for voyage planning and route plotting ‘on the move’ by integrating and interfacing them with compatible platforms.

The concept provides a digital solution to the ship-navigator based upon computing sea-ice resistance relative to the ship’s motive power and ice regime as available from digital sea-ice data. Such a system will not only reduce distance and fuel costs but also save maintenance costs and downtime for ships navigating in ice. This is a win-win situation for shipping companies that may result in reduced insurance premium for the Arctic routes.

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The market that we will be able to penetrate will be the large Bulk and Oil tanker management companies in China, Japan and Greece which make up a total of 3345 vessels currently in operations.

This system will also assist the Russian Merchant and new International fleet to grow into the Asia to Europe market in the coming years competing with the current Major players.

The stakeholders this may appeal to would include shipping companies, Port Authorities, Insurance companies, SAR organizations et al. The biggest beneficiary of the tool is the ship itself since it can do a tactical voyage planning ‘on the go’ and able to adjust her course and speed with updated sea ice charts. It leads to better planning of ETA’s and reduced sea ice interaction resulting in reduced maintenance costs for ships in the medium to long term. A container shipping company can finally plan a better voyage scheduling in sea ice which is so critical to stakeholders and container positioning thereby reducing uncertainties in the supply chain logistics.