| GISdevelopment.net ---> Application --- > Utility --- > Transport |
Internet Based Indigenous Communication/Monitoring Technology For Fleet at the High Seas (INSAT MSS)
Pushpalata B. Shah
pushpa@ipdpg.gov.in
Navita J. Thakkar
navita@sac.isro.org
I.C.Matieda
matieda@ipdpg.gov.in
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.
The mobile mapping service is provided through a web server having two components viz. the map component and the MSS message component. The GIS package used for storing the map data is AGIS. The base map is the world coastline map obtained from the AGIS web site. The second component, that is the MSS message is received by the web server in near real time. At the web server, the data is first logged into a database. Once uploaded it is ready for viewing by the fleet managers. The following tools are available for monitoring over the web site ("http://www.mss.sac.gov.in/sacmss.html"), on an individual basis or all at a time - routes & halts of the vessels, messages transmitted, speed of the vessel, the download (data) utility and standard map tools (pan, zoom, measure). Figure_2, Figure_3, Figure_4, Figure_5,Figure_6 & Figure_7 are snap shots of each of these features as viewed through a browser.
Figure_2: Browser view of routes of multiple vessels without date & time stamp
Figure_3: Browser view of individual vessel route with date & time stamp
Figure_4: Browser view of messages transmitted with date & time
Figure_5: Browser view of speed of the vessel
Figure_6: Browser view of Downloading co-ordinates, attributes& messages
Figure_7: Browser view of Map tools
The Nuts and Bolts in the background:
The fleet manager’s query for monitoring, sent through the appropriate GUI element goes to the server as a document request. The server creates the query result and posts it back to him through a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), i.e. a JAVA-Servlet. [Ref 1.0] The server acts as a middleman between the client and the Servlet thread. This thread does rest of the processing. Server merely displays the HTML generated by the Servlet. [Ref 2.0] Key statistics for the vehicle can be viewed in another browser window. The text-messages are displayed in a third browser window. The messages are linked with the display of locations at the time the text-message was transmitted (Figure_4).
Customisation as per FSI specifications:
Currently, discussions are on with the Department of Fisheries to tune the portal features with additional utilities like
Conclusion/Analysis:
The first block - communication, could be wireless communication, including radio communication. There are several options available for low and high level communication over cellular telephone networks. But the major issue is of availability and reliability, especially for the people at sea who are always at a comparatively high risk level. Satellite based communication is a much safer bet.
When it comes to geographic information the web is the perfect presentation medium. It can provide current, analytical, multi source information. The Internet has now become the common man's mode of connecting with the rest of the world.
The third block, i.e. providing mobile geographic services has the advantages of
Acknowledgements:
The authors sincerely acknowledge the motivation and support provided by Dr. K.N. Shankara, Director SAC, Shri. A.R. Dasgupta, Deputy Director, SITAA/SAC, Shri. K. Bandyopadhyaya, Group Director, SAG/SITAA/SAC, Shri S.S Valdiya, Head SEID/SITAA/SAC & Shri M.L. Hasija, Group Director, SEOG-D/SITAA/SAC.
References:
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.
The mobile mapping service is provided through a web server having two components viz. the map component and the MSS message component. The GIS package used for storing the map data is AGIS. The base map is the world coastline map obtained from the AGIS web site. The second component, that is the MSS message is received by the web server in near real time. At the web server, the data is first logged into a database. Once uploaded it is ready for viewing by the fleet managers. The following tools are available for monitoring over the web site ("http://www.mss.sac.gov.in/sacmss.html"), on an individual basis or all at a time - routes & halts of the vessels, messages transmitted, speed of the vessel, the download (data) utility and standard map tools (pan, zoom, measure). Figure_2, Figure_3, Figure_4, Figure_5,Figure_6 & Figure_7 are snap shots of each of these features as viewed through a browser.
Figure_2: Browser view of routes of multiple vessels without date & time stamp
Figure_3: Browser view of individual vessel route with date & time stamp
Figure_4: Browser view of messages transmitted with date & time
Figure_5: Browser view of speed of the vessel
Figure_6: Browser view of Downloading co-ordinates, attributes& messages
Figure_7: Browser view of Map tools
The Nuts and Bolts in the background:
The fleet manager’s query for monitoring, sent through the appropriate GUI element goes to the server as a document request. The server creates the query result and posts it back to him through a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), i.e. a JAVA-Servlet. [Ref 1.0] The server acts as a middleman between the client and the Servlet thread. This thread does rest of the processing. Server merely displays the HTML generated by the Servlet. [Ref 2.0] Key statistics for the vehicle can be viewed in another browser window. The text-messages are displayed in a third browser window. The messages are linked with the display of locations at the time the text-message was transmitted (Figure_4).
Customisation as per FSI specifications:
Currently, discussions are on with the Department of Fisheries to tune the portal features with additional utilities like
- Display of Attribute information (Vessel/Boat owner's name, Expiry date of fishing permit, Vessel/boat type
- Display of Zonal limits (area of operation)
- Time schedules of each vessel (Date of deployment,
- Restricted as well as Central monitoring of individual fishing zones
- Digital map of fish resources. (i.e. Identifying areas of different schools of fish)
Conclusion/Analysis:
The first block - communication, could be wireless communication, including radio communication. There are several options available for low and high level communication over cellular telephone networks. But the major issue is of availability and reliability, especially for the people at sea who are always at a comparatively high risk level. Satellite based communication is a much safer bet.
When it comes to geographic information the web is the perfect presentation medium. It can provide current, analytical, multi source information. The Internet has now become the common man's mode of connecting with the rest of the world.
The third block, i.e. providing mobile geographic services has the advantages of
- Being always available (subject to security & connectivity constraints)
- Providing support through light weight clients
- Serving multiple clients at the same time
- Being scalable (i.e. support large number of requests, by adding additional machines)
- Being centrally maintainable in secure facilities by specially trained staff
Acknowledgements:
The authors sincerely acknowledge the motivation and support provided by Dr. K.N. Shankara, Director SAC, Shri. A.R. Dasgupta, Deputy Director, SITAA/SAC, Shri. K. Bandyopadhyaya, Group Director, SAG/SITAA/SAC, Shri S.S Valdiya, Head SEID/SITAA/SAC & Shri M.L. Hasija, Group Director, SEOG-D/SITAA/SAC.
References:
- "Procedures for live GIS access over a Web", Navita Relan, Pushpalata B. Shah, I.C. Matieda, proceedings of MAP-India-2001, held at Delhi on 7-9 Feb, 2001.
- "Flexible Working Domain for the Grass Root Administrator at his Desktop", Navita Relan, Pushpalata B. Shah, I.C. Matieda, proceedings of Computing-2001,conducted by the Indore Chapter of CSI on 23-24 Mar, 2001.