Page 46: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2017)

connectivity & the internet of things

KVH “Watch” © chombosan / Adobe Stock

Conceived in its never-ending drive to progressively service its customers, KVH is working on a proprietary Internet of

Things (IoT) solution for the commercial maritime market. Code-named “Watch,” KVH’s IoT application is designed to collect, compress, process, transport and analyze system data from ships, with the promise to deliver a broad swath of customizable ef? ciency solutions. Robert Balog, SVP, Engineering and Michael Mitsock, VP of Marketing discuss the plan with Maritime Reporter & Engineering News.

BY GREG TRAUTHWEIN hile the maritime in- rally the cost of transmission will come development of its “Watch” IoT solu- tion to effectively reduce the ? le trans- dustry is generally down too. But problematic still will be tion is an outgrowth of KVH’s customer mit size from 10MB to about 800 bytes. classi? ed conserva- the sheer quantity of data, or more accu- service mantra of always providing a To optimize the process even further, the

Wtive in terms of tech- rately stuf? ng all of that data ef? ciently ‘Positive Customer Experience,’ said shipboard system is able to monitor net- nology uptake, the tide is changing as and cost-effectively through existing sat- Mitsock. But KVH ran into a problem work data load, transmitting data at op- some of the world’s biggest ship own- ellite communication pipelines. “That is as it continued to grow its business, spe- timum times.

ers aggressively leverage data available a discussion shaping around IoT in every ci? cally, data ? ow and bandwidth, as Balog said once KVH solved its own from ship operations, covering every- industry: how do you take a mass of data the KVH antenna alone generates about problem, it became clear that by mak- thing from machinery and system health and shrink it down to something that is 10MB of data per day. “The bandwidth ing its solution ? exible that this solu- to navigation, in an effort to save money usable?” said Mitsock. For the commer- is the issue, as we had to ? nd the means tion could include data ? ows from other and increase ef? ciency. On the equip- cial maritime sector, KVH is developing to maximize that connection,” said Ba- ship equipment and systems. The key ment side, the days of performing ser- a solution, code named “Watch,” which log. “Even though we have a much fast- to success, however, comes in working vice premised on the calendar is giving is scheduled to come to market in 2017. er connection, we have to always think: with individual vessel owner / opera- way to ‘condition based maintenance’ ‘what are we going to do with all of this tors to determine data priorities for each

Problem Solving (CBM). On the navigation side, solutions data?’” owner, each ship, each ? eet. “The need are increasingly becoming prescriptive, KVH is a ubiquitous presence in the The solution is simple to state, com- came out of developing something for analyzing previous performance given maritime VSAT sector, last year record- plex to deliver: move more data process- ourselves, and we thought, ‘let’s make route, weather, course and speed. ing milestones in shipping its 6,000th ing to the ship, and be more selective in it ? exible,’” and look to integrate data

TracPhone system for the mini-VSAT determining the information to be sent. streaming from other shipboard equip-

Information Overload Broadband service, and its 200,000th According to Balog, a key is edge pro- ment and systems. With a broad global

A large modern commercial ships can mobile satellite antenna shipped for its cessing footprint KVH had a broad ? eld to ? nd a have up to 6,000 points of monitoring and TracPhone and TracVision product lines. Today the routine is to move data from willing technology partner to help devel- generate in excess of 60MB of data per The company is uniquely positioned in ship to shore, then run the data through a op the system. While full details on the day. In step with land-based trends, those regards to IOT solutions as it manufac- parser to get a summary of the antenna’s exact nature of the commercial ship(s) numbers are projected to continue rising. tures, installs and services the antenna operation. Step one of the KVH solution under test could not be shared, KVH did

As the number of users and the ? ow of systems and ancillary equipment, as is to move the data parser to the ship, concede that “there is a beta test in prog- data from ship to shore increases, natu- well as provides the VSAT pipeline. The and simultaneously use a software solu- ress, a beta test capturing all shipboard 46 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • FEBRUARY 2017

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