DMA to Test New Real-Time Data System for Ships

The Danish Maritime Authority (DMA) plans to take part in 2017 in a pilot project on the development and testing of a system that collects real-time data from various components on board ships and sends them to shore-based organizations.

In practice, the solution consists of a number of sensors that measure the condition of the ship’s equipment and record emissions from the ship.

All the sensor-generated information is collected and continuously transmitted to shore in real-time, where stakeholders with access to the data can use the information for various purposes, including ongoing optimization of the machinery, more efficient maintenance, ongoing fuel consumption optimization and continuous emission monitoring.

“For the marine equipment industry it is, in other words, all about ’Condition Based Maintenance’, i.e. helping improve the services offered to shipowners and ensuring optimum operation and use of on-board systems. For the authorities, it is especially interesting to be able to continuously monitor whether, for example, ships’ sulphur and NOx emissions comply with regulatory limits,” the Danish Maritime Authority said.

”In the near future, many ships will be on-line all the time, exactly as is already the case on land,” Troels Blicher Danielsen, Deputy Director General, the Danish Maritime Authority, said.

“If we can simultaneously demonstrate that the technology makes it easier to continuously monitor ships’ emissions of, for example, sulphur, then it could be a big step towards more effective enforcement,” he added.

The Aalborg-based company GateHouse is behind the pilot project which is supported by the Danish Maritime Fund. The Danish Maritime Authority said it will, along with a number of companies including shipowners and other firms, contribute to the testing of the new technology.

For a couple of years, the Danish Maritime Authority has been working on Big Data to and from ships under the auspices of the EU-funded project EfficienSea2 and intends to couple the experience gained from the new pilot project where data are transmitted live to shore with elements of the EfficienSea2 project.