Page 42: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2014)

42 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • NOVEMBER 2014

Leveraging the Link

Understanding the cost conscious atti- tude in the maritime industry, it’s impor- tant to provide added value to persuade ship owners of the ? nancial viability of ship tracking. RockFLEET operates on the Iridium network, speci? cally using the ‘Short Data Burst’ (SBD) capability.

This enables pole-to-pole global cover- age on a Pay As You Go basis. With no annual contract required, the user only pays for the months the system is in use and pre-purchases credits for trans- mitting tracking positions. An optional module enables RockFLEET to switch automatically to GSM services when in range, providing further cost savings.

The system obtains a position us- ing the GPS satellite network and then transmits that position at user-de? ned intervals. A single location transmis- sion uses a single pre-paid credit, mak- ing the RockFLEET approach to track- ing extremely cost-effective. Tracking data is viewed on the Rock Seven ? eet management platform, The CORE, or as described above, on the user’s own ? eet management system. If a user doesn’t not have their own internal system, The

CORE ? eet management platform pro- vides a secure, user friendly web-based tracking service that will support secu- rity and logistics world-wide.

Further value can be gained from uti- lizing the Iridium network for ‘Machine 2 Machine’ (M2M) applications. Rock-

FLEET has a wired (serial) API which means it can be controlled by other sys- tems that may transmit data via Iridium.

For example, existing telemetry systems on a vessel that usually collect and send environmental data via terrestrial net- works or other, more expensive satel- lite networks, can easily be expanded to transmit from anywhere in the world via the RockFLEET unit, at the same cost per transmission as a simple location message.

This can be useful to receive fuel consumption data from engine manage- ment systems or maintenance alerts from other equipment on board, in a very cost effective manner. Much like the Rock-

FLEET approach to how position data is integrated with proprietary software solutions, this M2M data capability has practically endless applications, only limited by the creativity of the user.

Crew Welfare was also a design con- sideration with RockFLEET. As well as the wired serial API, it features a wire- less Bluetooth LE API, which allows mobile apps to send and receive their own data via Iridium.

At present, the Rock Seven Connect app uses this feature for crew messag- ing but it could be used i.e. for weather routing and navigational warning infor- mation.

The Author

Nick Farrell is Director of Rock Seven, a

UK based developer of Iridium tracking system for maritime, land and aeronauti- cal users.

VESSEL TRACKING

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Dec 3rd-5th

New Orleans, LA

Manufacturing Marine

Cranes, Davits & Handling Systems

Specializing in highly engineered, custom products, meeting a wide range of specifi cations for the marine industry 21433 SW Oregon Street Sherwood, OR 97140 USA 0H  s&X   [email protected]

RockFLEET operates on the Iridium network, specifi cally using the ‘Short Data

Burst’ (SBD) capability. This enables pole-to-pole global coverage on a Pay As

You Go basis.

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