NO344846B1 - Procedure and system for improving navigation safety for seagoing vessels in high-risk waters - Google Patents

Description

Procedure and system to improve navigational safety for seagoing vessels in risk-prone waters.

Background for the invention

The present invention relates to a method and system for improving navigation safety for seagoing vessels in risk-prone waters, as stated in the preamble of the attached claims 1 and 12.

Description of known technique

Known methods and systems are completely dependent on receiving at all times reliable and flexible signal information from external sources which are mainly based on satellite systems and land-based installations. This of course also includes extensive equipment installations, maintenance and, not least, user knowledge, as well as application to the individual vessels.

The known solutions are vulnerable with regard to technical and human failure in one or more parts, including the risk of external influences, such as sabotage, damage, etc. Even an extensive selection of electronic navigation aids does not replace the necessity of the vessel operator's duty to keep a continuous visual lookout to, among other things, be able to maneuver the vessel according to safe references, such as sea marks, as well as at all times to maintain a correct perception of the situation for navigation and manoeuvring. Regardless of the extent of electronic aids, it is the vessel's driver's visual outlook that is decisive for the vessel's safety. Continuous lookout is therefore part of every skipper's basic knowledge in connection with navigation and maneuvering of vessels. Failure and/or lack of visibility is one of the biggest causes of accidents in connection with collisions and grounding.

Purpose of the invention

The invention therefore aims to improve navigation safety for vessels and thus also improve their sailing safety, maintenance of safe speed especially in areas exposed to danger and situations which in turn can lead to e.g. groundings or collisions between vessels, structures and installations etc. Especially in connection with navigation/manoeuvring in difficult conditions, e.g. in the case of reduced visibility, poor lighting, fog, difficult contrast conditions, generally bad weather and/or problematic currents, safety improvement is highly desirable.

For this purpose, the invention aims to achieve maximum robustness and safety against operational disturbances, external influences, sabotage or the like in order to maintain the invention's main function at all times, i.e. improve navigation safety within a coverage area where application of the invention is made possible. It is also intended that the invention as such should be independent of navigation information and installations/equipment on the vessel in order to achieve the intended safety for navigation and maneuvering under difficult sailing conditions, so that a vessel operator at any time and place has a situational perception of the vessel's position/movement in relation to external references. The invention also aims at visual guidance of traffic in uncertain danger zones by establishing dynamically activatable beacons.

The invention

The method, according to the present invention, is thus characterized by the features that appear in the attached claim 1. Further embodiments of the method appear in the associated subclaims 2 - 11.

The system, according to the present invention, is thus characterized by the features that appear in the attached claim 12. Further embodiments of the method appear in the associated sub-claims 13 - 20.

The system, referred to in the following as DSGS (Distributed Ship Guiding System), is designed, at all times and under various conditions, to maintain and optimize the pilot's ability to orient himself in relation to fixed recognizable reference points/positions in the form of activated beacons or the like, for the way to establish a visual perception of the situation in the vessel's direction of travel. In addition to a purely visual signal perception, under certain conditions a form of acoustic signaling may be appropriate, either as a single-operating sounder or as an integral part of sea marks.

DSGS differs significantly from known systems that assist seagoing vessels with navigation/maneuvering in narrow, dangerous waters in that all information to the vessel operator is communicated visually and/or acoustically directly in the field of view for lookouts and without additional installations or aids on the vessel, so that DSGSs are equally applicable for vessels with a minimum of traditional navigational aids, as for vessels that have an excess capacity of navigational aids.

Consequently, costs for and the scope of the implementation of the invention are also minimal compared to known solutions, as well as that the system can be expanded gradually in larger or smaller local units. Installations in connection with offshore facilities, e.g. aquaculture industry, wind farms, platform installations or the like, is a potential accident or disaster risk with regard to grounding or collisions, and the risk can therefore, according to the invention, be remedied by seamarks and any other form of warning being activated when vessels pass into a construction safety zone.

DSGS means that a vessel's positions and movements are continuously recorded, so that the marking systems relevant to the sailing route are activated at all times. The activation takes place in the form of the respective beacons changing from a rest state to having an amplified signal level, e.g. lighting level or lighting mode which at any time and situation is adapted to the weather and visibility, as well as contrast in relation to the surrounding and/or background lighting and/or light signals. The activation can also advantageously include changes in the respective beacons' or lighting systems' grades or combinations of grades, e.g. lighting, colours, direction, sectors or other forms of contrasting effects. Direction or sectors can of course also apply to sounders. By the term sea marks is meant here all forms of visual and acoustic marking and/or signaling in relation to fairways and/or other traffic areas in order to achieve safe maneuvering at all times maintenance of safe speed based on the pilot's perception of the situation by means of visual and/or acoustic signals referenced to known positions.

Seamarks are understood to mean all standard and non-standardized marking systems with and without lighting, as well as marks that have additional functions for additional visibility and/or contrast-enhancing effects that can be made clear by a controlled activation over a given time interval. Among them, the use of various forms of activatable right-of-way mark systems and similar devices that are used to guide vessels is also envisaged.

Nautical marks are used in the invention as a collective term for all forms of nautical marking, signalling, lighting alternatives in and by a fairway, sailing routes which are arranged for a visual orientation observed from a vessel's operator's post on the vessel's command bridge.

The beacons that are covered by the invention are all that have a built-in activation function that can be controlled remotely from a control unit and/or from a user/owner. Activatable acoustic signalers are also included here in the common term seamarks.

Lighting also means various forms of lighting in the form of light sources that illuminate a marking and/or a danger area. An example of these could be a speed boat mark (HIB) with indirect lighting of a surface or a danger. Examples of such marking are also described in the Coastal Administration's publication "Bottom-fixing marks with light".

A further example of marking can be in the form of different contrast-creating light signal effects, e.g. one or more of variation in colour, strength, movements, rotation, sectoring, focusing and pulsation (occulative), to promote increased visual perception. This can be understood as meaning that the light source itself is directly visible or indirectly by illuminating a sea mark or other marker near the fairway.

The DSGS is structurally arranged so that, in the event of a system error or failure, it can make use of built-in redundant functions to maintain its main functions. A main system is advantageously divided into independent subsystems that are not affected by errors, failures, sabotage etc. in other subsystems in the main system. This means that the structuring of the various underlying security systems is arranged in such a way that the supply of visual and/or acoustic security information is maintained uninterrupted and at all times.

One of the main objectives is invulnerability, i.e. independence of external auxiliary functions such as navigation and time signal information. In order for the system to be able to function independently and under all forms of failure, it can also include a self-supply of power supply. However, it may be appropriate that the system can also be synchronized with external time references from satellite-based systems or the like, so that activation of the sea marks can be synchronized with satellite-based navigation and timing systems, i.e. systems that monitor vessel traffic at sea in real time.

The system has a flexible structure that can be adapted to larger or smaller coverage areas determined by the geometric distribution of sensors for the calculation of vessels' position and movements, as well as the relevant and activateable beacons for the sailing routes. Coverage areas can be selected based on exposed waterways and/or the need for guiding vessels under different weather and visibility conditions, along larger or smaller stretches of coast or "waterways", when entering and leaving ports, and when traveling near installations such as . aquaculture facilities, wind farms, platforms or other facilities that may pose a danger to installations and/or vessels.

In addition, controlled signaling can take place from given positions in the form of acoustic signal generators, e.g. horns, sirens or other forms of sound sources, including as a danger or alarm warning in a given situation, partly as a supplement and partly in situations where visibility is too poor for visual orientation.

Acoustic signaling as a beacon can have special advantages in such poor visibility conditions that even powerful visual signal sources/methods have limited effect.

For example, in connection with dense fog, signaling may be limited to acoustic signaling methods. Acoustic forms of signaling have great advantages, including a relatively simple and energy-saving device with a wide range of variations in signal transmission forms, such as variations in amplitude, frequency, intervals, codes such as Morse code or the like which can in turn convey important information to vessels, such as the beacon's identity, danger warning situations. Activatable forms of acoustic signaling can advantageously be an integral part of visual seamarks and/or as an independent unit located at a position that is suitable for guiding vessels based on acoustic signalling.

Alarm or danger notification can e.g. happen when a safety zone limit is exceeded, e.g. related to aquaculture facilities, wind turbines or wind farm, platforms and/or other areas that may pose a danger to the vessel itself and/or to an area that the vessel is approaching. In this way, vessels can be notified in time using activated beacons, thereby showing a safe way out of a danger area. Notification can also be forwarded to the user/owner of the danger area.

As a secondary effect of activated beacons, other vessels, including small boats and/or other seagoing traffic without operational radar and which are located in or in the immediate vicinity of a busy fairway, will also be notified by the activated beacons, whether these are activated by the vessel itself or nearby moving vessels. Warning can then be in the form of visual observation of activated beacons, but in extremely difficult visibility conditions, acoustic warning functions can also be activated.

Activateable beacons will of course also be able to be activated by a form of override in the procedure and system, either by the user/owner of the beacons with associated areas or installations or another form of remote control or function activation, for example via a coded radar signal from a vessel.

As a control of the vessels that sail into the coverage area of the system, a control function can be established that compares vessel-reported position and movement data (AIS) together with DSGS registered/calculated position and movement data, which contributes to control that the otherwise reported vessel-related data matches known information about the vessel, for example from a local database in the system and/or by a method as described in Norwegian patent no. 334246. In order to be able to recognize vessels later, the data will be stored in a database that is kept up to date by the system.

Activation of beacons is designed to also be able to convey visually recordable additional information that is relevant to the situation. In addition, the signals may have an identifying character. Likewise, the signals can provide a communication of the relevant traffic situation such as a warning of oncoming traffic and/or traffic that may constitute a dangerous situation such as collisions, grounding etc.

Other forms of important information dissemination that are relevant to the vessel's position/movement and sailing conditions may include a notification function about locally registered signal errors or quality uncertainty from a satellite-based navigation system such as GNSS (AIS, GPS) or similar that is used by the respective vessels when entering and leaving of coverage area where the system and method are used.

An essential part of the invention is to achieve invulnerability as well as great security against sabotage, technical errors/sources of error, including human failure which can constitute a real or the greatest uncertainty factor. Likewise, great emphasis has been placed on the system to be able to function independently of external influences, which could cause system failure, e.g. sabotage and acts of terrorism. The system can in principle function as a closed system consisting of an internal communication between the units for position determination as well as a control system for the activation of the beacons relevant to the situation at all times which are part of the overall system and their marking characteristics. The system as a whole, including beacons, can advantageously have an independent power supply from batteries, solar cells, wind power, wave power or the like.

In order to further maintain the system's invulnerability and safety against incidents such as sudden failure of the vessel's own radar or other external auxiliary functions after the vessel has entered the system's coverage area, a sailing model can be created that is representative of a vessel in an establishment phase that starts just before and is updated continuously throughout the vessels' entire movement within the coverage area in order to continue to be able to maintain the management function even in the event of an almost total system failure. This can be realized by activating the respective beacons with a somewhat extended temporal safety margin, so-called "lock time". The sailing model is mainly based on the system's registered speed profiles adapted to the relevant sailing route, as well as supplemented with any other available information related to the respective vessel's movement pattern, for example such information that is communicated via the AIS system, a traffic control unit VTS or the like. Since the sailing model is continuously updated, the model's predictive ability will be optimised, i.e. achieving good accuracy during the time "slot time" that the activation phase must be maintained to ensure the pilot's understanding of orientation throughout the sailing route. That is to say, the system creates a dynamically movable zone "slot" that follows the respective vessels within the system's coverage area and thus ensures that the vessel operator gets a good visual perception of his vessel's position in a traffic picture.

In order to achieve the desired effect in the form of control of beacons as a function of a controlled activation, the modern LED technology is essential for the visual management functions. Almost all modern or updated beacons are based on LED technology with local power supply through a combination of solar cell and battery systems. A larger selection of remotely controllable beacons is, among other things, described in the company SABIK's product information www.sabik.com. Such beacons are partially controllable to achieve the various effects in an activation phase.

As a control function of the vessel operator's visual perception of the traffic situation, i.e. the vessel's position and movement in relation to the activated beacons, it may be appropriate for the vessel to be equipped with a photogrammetric registration/camera function that continuously records the vessel's movements in relation to the beacons in or through a hazard.

The registration range will depend on the visibility conditions, which are greatly enhanced with the help of the activated beacons. The photogrammetric registration will be included as an important parameter for the calculation of the vessels' movement pattern in relation to the beacons activated at any time. For example, in connection with prediction of the sailing route, calibration, demonstration, training.

Claims (19)

CLAIM 1. Procedure for directing seagoing vessel traffic for at least one vessel (1) when moving into, into and out of risk-prone waters, where the vessel in a normal operational state has a sweeping radar beam that is detectable by a plurality of radar signal detectors associated with a processing and control unit (10) for calculating the vessel's positions, maneuvering movements and course, characterized by - that the method has two selectable operating modes, where it a) in a first operational mode, in the aforementioned normal state, based on the vessel's calculated positions, maneuvering movements and course, given by information from the vessel's sweeping radar beam, a controlled activation or deactivation simultaneously or timed by signaling equipment is effected by those along the vessel's sailing route at all times (2.2) applicable sea marks (4), and b) in a second operating mode, in the event of a technical failure in the vessel's radar system or the loss of a sweeping radar signal beam, immediately upon the vessel's entry into a beacon-equipped coverage area, the processing and control unit (10) calculates a sailing model for the vessel, the sailing model being continuously updated based on received and/or calculated information about the vessel's positions, maneuvering movements and course and thus the vessel's movement pattern, whereby a prediction of the vessel's estimated sailing route is created, and a controlled activation or deactivation is given simultaneously or divided by time of signaling equipment for those relevant at any time along the vessel's sailing route (2.2) sea marks (4), and - that in the activated of the two operational modes, visual and/or acoustic information is thereby produced, which a vessel operator on the vessel's command bridge will be able to perceive in his line of sight from visual and/or acoustic information sources at said sea marks (4) in water and/or on country, 2. Procedure as stated in claim 1, characterized in that the beacons (4) are designed to be able to convey visually recordable additional information that is relevant to the current vessel traffic situation, such as one or more of: advance warning of oncoming traffic, traffic that may pose a risk of vessel collisions, grounding, as well as information about the identity of the beacon in question. 3. Procedure as stated in claim 1, or 2, characterized in that the sea marks (4) are also designed for visual warning signaling of locally registered signal errors, or operational errors in a navigation system, e.g. a satellite-based navigation system. 4. Procedure as stated in any of claims 1 - 3, characterized by the establishment of a safety and warning zone around offshore installations, e.g. aquaculture industry installations (5), platforms (6) and wind farms (7), and that the vessel is notified by the light and/or sound emission of beacons when the vessel approaches and/or exceeds an established safety zone limit (5.2), and that with the aid of the beacons a safe way out of the danger area of the safety zone. Method as stated in any one of claims 1 - 4, characterized in that by means of activatable beacons (4) for a sailing route (2, 2.1) a dynamically time-limited time, so-called "slot time" is achieved over a given period of time calculated on the basis of the vessel's speed and movement pattern to effect the seamarks' reinforcing visual visibility and/or acoustic signaling adapted to the local meterological conditions at any given time, e.g. one or more of visibility, fog, lighting, contrast, and backlighting. 6. Method as stated in any one of claims 1 - 5, characterized in that the activation of relevant beacons (4) additionally enables co-location of radar signal detectors and acoustic and/or visual signal transmitters. 7. Method as specified in any of claims 1 - 6, characterized in that a time reference internal to the system is used, so that synchronization with external time references provided by satellite-based navigation-related systems is enabled, when synchronizing relevant sea marks. 8. Method as specified in any of claims 1 - 7, characterized in that satellite-based navigation and time signals are continuously monitored with regard to signal quality and accuracy in relation to fixed and known references, so that operational disturbances are communicated via beacons (4) to vessels or /and via a control unit (10). 9. Method as specified in any of the claims 1 - 8, characterized in that a control function is established by comparing vessel-reported position and movement data (AIS) together with registered and calculated position and movement data in a distributed ship management system (DSGS) which also constitutes a check that other reported vessel-related data is consistent with known information about the vessel. 10. Method as stated in any of claims 1 - 9, characterized in that a secondary effect of activated beacons (4) also constitutes a warning for other vessel traffic that is not equipped with sweeping radar equipment, in that such type of radar-free vessel will the pilot's observation of activated light and/or sound signaling from beacons (4) indirectly result in a warning that other vessel traffic in the immediate area may pose a risk of collision. 11. System for directing seagoing vessel traffic for at least one vessel (1) when moving into, into and out of risk-prone waters, where the vessel in normal operational condition has a sweeping radar beam that is detectable by a plurality of radar signal sensors or detectors associated with a processing - and control unit (10) for calculating the vessel's positions, maneuvering movements and course, characterized by - that seamarks (4) in water and/or on land are equipped with selectively activatable light signaling and/or sound signaling equipment, - that the processing and control unit (10) a) in the aforementioned normal operating condition, is designed to continuously calculate information about the vessel's positions, maneuvering movements and course along the vessel's sailing route (2, 2.1) based on radar beam information received from the aforementioned sensors or detectors, or b) in the event of a technical failure in the vessel's radar system or the loss of a radar signal from there, i.e. in the event of a deviation from the aforementioned normal operating condition, immediately upon the vessel's entry into a beacon-equipped coverage area, continuously calculate and update a sailing model for the vessel based on received and/or calculated information about the vessel's positions, maneuvering movements and course, so that a prediction of the vessel's estimated sailing route is created, and - that the processing and control unit (10) delivers control signals to the relevant beacons' (4) signaling equipment (4.5) in order to activate or deactivate the aforementioned signaling equipment simultaneously or timed on command from the control signals. 12. System as specified in claim 11, characterized in that the seamarks (4) have equipment designed to be able to convey visually recordable additional information that is relevant to the current vessel traffic situation, such as one or more of: advance warning of oncoming traffic, traffic that may pose a risk of vessel collisions , grounding, as well as information on the (4) identity of the relevant sea mark. 13. System as stated in claim 12, characterized in that the seamarks (4) also have equipment for visual warning signaling (4.2) of locally registered signal errors, or operational errors in a navigation system, e.g. a satellite-based navigation system. 14. System as specified in any one of claims 11-13, characterized in that beacons' (4) light and/or sound emission is related to a safety and warning zone (5.2) around installations located at sea (5, 6, 7) and that selected beacons (4) are designed to be activated when a vessel approaches and/or exceeds an established safety zone boundary (5), and that the beacons (4) are designed to show a safe way out of the danger area of the safety zone (5.2). 15. System as set forth in any one of claims 11-14, wherein the system is equipped with a plurality of radar signal sensors (3) or detectors (3) for capturing characteristic radar signals from a vessel's sweeping radar beam, in order by triangulation or similar algorithms to allow the processing and control unit (10) determine the vessel's 30 incremental speed, as well as position and direction changes, characterized in that at least some of said sensors (3) or detectors (3) are mounted on sea marks (4) and communicate with the processing and control unit ( 10) via cable (11) or wireless (11'). 16. System as specified in any of claims 11-15, characterized in that said sensors or detectors (3), light signaling equipment (4.2) and/or sound signaling equipment (4.5) are co-located on the sea mark (4). 17. System as stated in any one of claims 11-16, characterized in that the processing and control unit (10) is connected to the receiving antenna (19) for receiving external time references provided by satellite-based navigation-related systems, and is arranged to create an internal time reference , so that it is possible to synchronize the relevant beacons' (4) signaling equipment. 18. System as stated in any one of claims 11-17, characterized in that the processing and control unit (10) monitors satellite-based navigation and time signals (18) continuously with regard to signal quality and accuracy in relation to fixed and known references, so that operational disturbances are recorded. 19. System as specified in any of claims 11-18, characterized in that the system displays a photogrammetric registration of activated beacons seen from a central position on the vessel, essentially seen in the vessel's direction of travel, in order to be able to register/control in that way the vessel's movement pattern in relation to activated beacons.