Everyone is talking about Internet of Things (IoT) or Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Why? Because it is going to have a big impact on both our everyday lives and how businesses can improve their operations.
IoT is a network of multiple devices connected to Internet. On the industrial side, it helps monitor, control and manage processes in a smarter and faster way. It can optimize business productivity and detect failures even before they happen.
IoT is strongly dependent on communication between the IoT devices and cloud services in Internet. The risk of possible problems in communication grows when the number of IoT devices increases to tens or hundreds of thousands, because the devices will use the majority of the available frequency spectrum in that region. The situation becomes even more difficult offshore.
Smart water, smart connections
Placing IoT devices onboard marine vessels has its own challenges. Because vessels will quite likely move outside conventional terrestrial network coverage areas, there is a strong need to ensure reliable connection and mission-critical communication everywhere at all times. In the future we need to have IoT capable marine vessels, especially when we are talking about the development of autonomous ships.
Connectivity and autonomous ships
- Autonomy requires reliable and accurate situation awareness and mission-critical communication
- Autonomous ships as IoT capable vessels
- Connectivity required even when terrestrial networks have no coverage
- Multiple connectivity routes with intelligent decision-making
SATEL took part in a Finnish project called ÄlyVESI – Smart City Ferries. It is a research, development and an innovation project that brings together the cities of Helsinki, Turku and Espoo, Finnish universities and universities of applied sciences and technology companies. The project tested ship-to-shore mission-critical communication in an autonomous ship environment, and the results show that the expected quality of the data transfers was easily achieved with minimal latency.
Read more about the project
Download more info about the project