EU project to increase safety at sea

Around US$11m has been set aside by the European Union to fund the ‘EfficienSea2’ initiative, the main aim of which is to develop a ‘Maritime Cloud’, a communication tool that will improve the exchange of information for vessels at sea. The project will also create new digital services within the areas of navigation and automatic ship emission reporting and monitoring, to further increase efficiency.

Danelec Marine is the lead partner in the working group for shipboard system integration and on-board networks. This task will address issues such as cybersecurity, onboard network integration and firewalling, as well as the integration of onboard systems with the service-oriented communication framework and the shipboard component of the Maritime Cloud concept.

“The shipping industry is rapidly moving to increase ship-ship and ship-shore data integration, and this will involve the exchange of large volumes of data between ship and shore,” said Hans Ottosen, CEO, Danelec Marine.

“At present, there is little standardisation of onboard data infrastructures, and it is not expected that the advent of the Maritime Cloud will change this substantially. Our working group will be tasked with providing the foundations for gateway solutions between the generic onboard client components of the Maritime Cloud and the present regime of customized and proprietary onboard solutions,” he added.

EU officials say this project is “groundbreaking and holds a high potential for innovation” and will “pave the way to, and fast track to, the introduction and use of modern communication, navigation and administrative systems”.

The project is being spearheaded by the Danish Maritime Authority and carried out by a consortium of 32 partners from 12 countries.

By Rachael Doyle