Approaches to the Port of Rostock – a test area in the vicinity of the Research Port of Rostock

Nautical systems

The R&D activities of the department Nautical Systems are focused on contributions to support a safe and efficient transport on the seven seas as well as on inland waterways. We do this to contribute to the minimization of the risk of collisions and groundings within the scope of increasing vessel traffic and the growing complexity of electronic systems aboard and around a ship.

According to this our scientists, engineers and technicians research in 3 working groups on new methods and technologies to increase the accuracy and integrity of data provided by maritime sensors and services. On one hand this comprises all navigation relevant data describing the own-movement of a vessel as well on the other hand all data which are of interest concerning the surrounding environment of a vessel (e.g. other vessels, obstacles).

Our centrals aims within these areas are as follows:

• Development of a robust integrated Positions-, Navigations- und Time system (PNT) including onboard sensors as well as terrestrial and  space-born augmentations systems
• Contributions  to the dissemination of cooperative determination of the maritime traffic situation to achieve an unambiguous and reliable overview about the maritime traffic situation

For this we collaborate with partners at national and international level. One core element of our work is focused on the support of the e-Navigation strategy of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). For that purpose we are integrated in working groups at national level (e.g. leadership of the PNT-working group of BMVI) as well as on international level. For the latter we are an associate member of IALA and bring in our knowledge into the PNT working group of the IALA eNAV committee.

The Research Port Rostock is playing an important role as a testbed to validate our technologies under real environmental conditions.  DLR is one of the founder members of the Research Port and our department is also responsible to deal with all foreign issues. Within the scope of measurement campaigns we have temporal access on a diving vessel. This vessel is equipped, besides typical nautical standard sensors like Radar, Gyro, ECDIS, Speed-Log and GPS receiver, with a lot of additional new nautical sensors like high precise GNSS-receivers as well as different inertial measurement units. All installation points are completely measured.

At DLR branch Neustrelitz the department is strongly involved within the Research Cluster Maritime Safety and Security. Together with DLR‘s Earth Observation Center we are responsible for the leadership of the Research Cluster. We use the cluster to continue our work within the integrated maritime PNT system and for traffic situation assessment with a specific focus on real-time capable processing and demonstration systems.

Image: Enno Kapitza for DLR

Maritime Services Group The research activities of the team “Maritime Services” are focused on the development and trial of radio navigation-based services with the aim that a resilient provision of position, navigation, and time data (PNT) can be ensured onboard. In this regard, maritime services are satellite- and ground-based GNSS augmentation services, alternative radio navigation systems and monitoring services for the provision of PNT-relevant safety information. Since the nineties code-based differential techniques (IALA Beacon DGNSS) are applied to fulfil performance requirements for ship navigation in coastal areas with the 1st generation of GNSS. The initial Maritime Ground Based Augmentation System (MGBAS) was developed by the group and deployed in the Research Port Rostock to demonstrate with GPS that integrity monitoring of phase-based augmentation systems is feasible and position accuracies better than 10 cm can be achieved. Current research activities focus on complementary scientific-technical questions arose out in the context of resilient provision of PNT data. The first asks for appropriate techniques to detect and compensate disturbances and breakdowns in the infrastructural parts of the maritime PNT system. The second deals with the experimental determination of performance quantities to derive thresholds for the integrity monitoring and to specify and consolidate the technical architecture of the maritime PNT system based on comparing the actual versus target performance. With our development results in the service area we want to ensure that an automatic compensation of disturbances and errors in the maritime PNT system become a reality. Read more

Multi Sensor Systems Group The Multi Sensor Systems group researches on new approaches and develops methods for sensor information fusion of the onboard maritime navigation system in order to provide resilient Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) information with high integrity. Due to low signal strength, the usage of signals of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS like e.g. GPS) is susceptible to both intentional and unintentional interference (i.e. Jamming). Furthermore, especially in port areas shadowing and multipath effects the GNSS based PNT determination, so that the required ability and integrity cannot be delivered. Therefore, the Multi Sensor Systems group addresses the challenges of a pure GNSS navigation by a joint usage of GNSS, augmentation systems and other onboard sensors to achieve a complete and reliable provision of PNT data. Based on redundancy in hardware and software not only the availability of all PNT data in the case of individual sensor failures can be increased, but also the integrity assessment of all PNT data will be enabled. The current research activities are focused on the development of reliable Bayesian recursive estimation schemes which serve as the basis to develop methods which could meet the requirements for safety-critical applications such as vessel navigation. The work particularly addresses the question of how one can achieve an efficient high-dimensional Bayesian filtering in order to estimate the error in the sense of an upper bound under consideration of a residual risk. Primarily, so called tightly coupled filters are developed, which allow the detection of faulty satellite signals and the exclusion of faulty measurements from the navigation solution. Read more

Traffic Systems Group The research activities of the team “Traffic Systems” are focused on the development of technologies for reliable traffic situation assessment using nautical sensors and systems. The main goal of the research activities of the team is the provision of methods and algorithms for an unambiguous description of the traffic situation using cooperative traffic assessment. In order to achieve the above goal, the team uses data and information from the automatic identification system (AIS), from the navigational sensors of the vessel (LINK: working group multi sensor systmes) and from the maritime radar. The radar with the capability to detect objects and to track these objects using the automatic radar plotting aid (ARPA) is the primary source for collision avoidance and traffic situation awareness. Following the implementation of the automatic identification system (AIS) in 2004 an additional important step was made to deploy a second measure for shipborne and shore based vessel tracking. Like almost every technology, neither ARPA nor AIS can be declared as an “altogether solution” and are subject to specific restrictions and limitations. Even though the system is working according to its specification the possibility cannot be ruled out, that specific AIS data is wrong or not meaningful during important maneuvers of a vessel. In order to estimate the overall traffic situation, the current research activities of the team are focused on methods which increase the plausibility of AIS and object tracking algorithms for radar echo detection under difficult environmental conditions (multiple targets, sea clutter). Additional research activities of the team try to answer the question which fusion technologies could be used in order to increase the reliability of the traffic situation assessment. Read more

Current Projects

• A++Set: Automated Aids for Safe and efficient vessel traffic processes
• DepNav: Dependable Navigation
• EMPONA: Implementation of EGNOS in the maritime domain as effective augmentation system for positioning in inland and pilot navigation
• EMS 2 :Real Time Services for Maritime Safety and Security 2
• LAESSI - Control and Assistance Systems to Enhance the Safety of Navigation in Inland Waterways
• MTCAS -  Maritime Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System
• StRout -  Strategic Route planning — A challenge for waterway crossing ferries

Finished Projects

• ALEGRO: Deployment of a local maritime augmentation system to support precise Galileo-applications and services with the vicinity of the Research Port Rostock
• ASMS: Advanced Sailing Management System
• EMS-MVS: Real-Time Services and Systems for maritime Safety
• GalileoADAP: Galileo Advanced Applications
• GalileoNav: Galileo - Usability, Application and Verification
• GSTB V1 STC APAF: Stand-alone Test Case Atmospheric Performance Assessment Facility
• MVT: Maritime Traffic Engineering: e-Navigation Integrity
• MITRA: Monitoring & Intervention for the Transportation of Dangerous Goods
• NAVSIM: GNSS SW Simulation Tool
• PiLoNav: Precise and integer Localisation and Navigation in Rail and Inlandwater Traffic
• PRIS: Prediction of Ionospheric Scintillations
• RCAS: Rail Collision Avoidance System
• SaMariS: Satellite based maritime Safety
• TAT: New Approaches for automatic Terminals within intermodal transport
• TOPGAL: Total Performance concept for GBAS based Automatic Landings
   

Thoralf Noack Head of Department German Aerospace Center Institute of Communications and Navigation, Nautical Systems Neustrelitz Tel.: +49 3981 480-136 Fax: +49 3981 480-123