Iridium Joins With Danish Maritime Safety Administration in the EfficienSea e-Navigation Project

Iridium Communications Inc. is collaborating with the Danish Maritime Safety Administration (DaMSA) in EfficienSea, a pilot e-Navigation project for Maritime Safety Information (MSI) broadcasts to ships in waters outside the coverage of terrestrial communication systems.

Under the program, DaMSA will conduct shipboard tests of Iridium-based short-burst data (SBD) devices for receiving and printing out MSI messages. Trident Sensors, an Iridium value-added manufacturer and reseller (VAR), is supplying the shipboard device for the tests, and Rock Seven, an Iridium VAR, is providing the software and infrastructure to support the MSI message transmissions. The sea trials are scheduled to start this month, and will run through next year. The trials will primarily be conducted in the Baltic Sea Region and the waters around Greenland, and the results will be presented to international organizations working with e-Navigation such as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA).

Ships subject to the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) requirements must be equipped with a suite of mandatory radio and satellite communication equipment, including a NAVTEX receiver that prints out weather alerts and other safety messages sent from shore authorities.

"The shipboard SBD receiver will mimic NAVTEX processing and message formats," said Dan Mercer, Iridium general manager and vice president for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia. "The Iridium two-way SBD links also enable additional functionality, such as geo-fencing and vessel tracking, which will permit the MSI broadcasts to switch automatically from NAVTEX to Iridium whenever the ship enters waters not covered by the NAVTEX transmitters."

"The opening of new Arctic Nav Areas for shipping will pose a challenge for authorities charged with mandatory marine safety broadcasts in those regions," said Omar Frits Eriksson, head of DaMSA Innovation and Project Division. "In addition to our MSI work within e-Navigation in the Baltic Sea Region, we are working with Iridium and its partners to investigate additional methods for delivering MSI messages to ships in Arctic Nav Areas, taking advantage of Iridium's low-latency satellite SBD service."