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Innovative Products & Boats- 2017

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vessels awaiting lockage as well as their schedule and direc- tion of transit. Each lock transmitter relays information related to its traf? c and status as well as its adjacent locks.

All of this information is available for display on ves- sels using their existing VHF AIS equipment and an ECS that is AIS message 21 and Application Speci? c Message (ASM) capable. RosePoint – a marine navigation system and software provider – has been a leader in implementing the AIS ASM standards, which allows the AIS data mes- sages to be displayed in a user-con? gurable fashion. Rose-

Point currently supports these e-Nav messages, but it must be enabled in the settings ? rst by enabling Experimental

ASM in the Settings-Rose Point Labs menu.

As more ECS providers enable their software to properly interpret and display the AIS information (which is be- ing received presently), the more readily all stakeholders can use the data. There are currently minimal standards for how the e-Nav information is displayed or portrayed on ECS; thus end users and manufacturers must work to- gether to ensure that the data are displayed in a useful, but non-intrusive manner. As the manufacturers adopt more of the e-Nav standards, the more con? gurable and custom- ized each ECS display can become.

Gregory Johnson is a Senior Program Manager at Alion

Science & Technology in the New London, CT of? ce. His group provides research and engineering support primarily to the U.S. Coast Guard R&D Center. He has a BSEE from the Coast Guard Academy (1987), a MSEE from

Northeastern University (1993), and a PhD in Electrical

Engineering from the University of Rhode Island (2005).

Mark Wiggins is a Senior Systems Engineer with 32 years of experience including 20 years with the U.S.

Coast Guard. He served on 4 cutters, a small boat station, R&D Center, US Coast Guard Academy and the

Leadership and Development Center. He has since been a systems engineer for Alion Science & Technology for over 12 years, involved with design, evaluation, integration, testing and improvement of complex systems.