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Introduction:
Development of sustainable technologies for betterment of mankind working at the High Seas is a global issue. The betterment could be in terms of safety of the personnel involved, creating valuable digital databases of the ocean resources, generation of navigational maps and so on. The sustainable technology can be achieved through a collision of communication technologies (i.e. hardware), networking systems that include both H/W & S/W and Mobile mapping services. i.e. It can be compartmentalised into three interconnected blocks - communication, networking and mapping services.

The INSAT reporting network consists of INSAT Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) in bound S/C transponder with coverage area of Indian sub continent and surrounding oceans. The MSS Fleet terminals provide one-way transmission of short message or position to a pre-defined central location, i.e. the HUB station. The communication technology has been developed indigenously at SAC. M/S Avantel, Hyderabad & BEL Bangalore manufactures the devices. They provide the key element 'location' for the mobile vehicles on road as well as moving vessels, ships, and buoys on the High Seas. Groups of Reporting Terminals time-share a common satellite channel to send their data to a HUB station. At the HUB, a Network Management System (NMS) transfers the data automatically to the desired destination through INTERNET. The Mobile Mapping Services are established through the MSS portal for fleet Management. This provides a near real-time monitoring tool with a Geographical Information System (GIS) based Mapping utility on the INTERNET. It is based on key elements like a data server, application server, wireless networks and client devices.

This paper describes the Internet based, indigenous communication/monitoring technology developed through INSAT based Mobile Satellite Services and the MSS portal for Fleet Management developed at Space Applications Center.

Customer's Perspective:

Fisheries Survey of India, with Head Quarters at Delhi, is currently using this system on an experimental basis. Their main objective is to monitor the fishing grounds in which any vessel is operating and creating digital maps of 'Fish-Catch' areas and digital Zonal maps. The Central Authority at Delhi requires the overall monitoring of the vessels along with individual monitoring by the zonal offices. The type of fish caught and the sea-truth of the location of various schools of fish are valuable information to be stored digitally in a Geographic Information System. The Coast Guard is authorised to monitor fishing by foreign vessels under the MZI Act 1981. For effective monitoring a need was felt to strengthen their communication facilities by providing funds for ship to shore, direct voice (radio) communication link with fishing vessels. The link also helps the coast guard in ensuring safety of the Indian owned vessels, fishing at sea and in rendering any assistance required.

Technology Provided:
A communications system has been configured using the HUB of Department of Space at Delhi and a few terminals mounted on boats. The MSS portal for monitoring ships, vessels and buoys is a web based service providing near-real time information related to location and text messages transmitted by the vessel/boat owner. The figure below shows the communication setup.

Figure_1: The Communication Setup
The data (location / 'text message') transmitted by the server is relayed to the HUB station via INSAT MSS (S/C) Transponder. The Network Management Server redirects the data to the web server over a leased line. The location-messages (LM) contain the position in terms of (latitude, longitude), time, height & date. The text-messages (TM) contain the text message sent by the captain / boat owner. This could be a message-code number also. These messages are delivered to the web server at a regular interval of 3 seconds.

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