Vesper Marine and Astrata Group Partnet to Deliver Groundbreaking Fleet Tracking
Vesper Marine, a leading manufacturer of innovative marine safety products, and Astrata Group, a developer of advanced location-based IT services, announced the signing of a new partnering agreement to deliver ground-breaking land and sea based fleet tracking solutions for customers who require precise tracking for their fleets and individuals on land and sea. Astrata’s land based tracking products combined with Vesper Marine’s marine-grade position and collision avoidance products make a compelling technology partnership. Behind the technology is a broad depth of customer knowledge and experience in the transportation and oil industries.
Astrata has designed, developed, manufactured and currently supports their 10th generation of telematics devices with thousands of units deployed worldwide. “Adding the ability to track work boats and other commercial vessels using our latest Astrata Global Location Platform (GLP) is a very exciting development for us and we are delighted to be able to work with Vesper Marine and their proven WatchMate marine Automatic Identification System (AIS) platform” said Astrata Vice President, Tong Pow Mun.
Vesper Marine specializes in the design, manufacture and distribution of marine electronics based on the international standard of AIS. WatchMate is the flagship product designed around Vesper Marine’s own design and manufactured Class B AIS module. Jeff Robbins, Vesper Marine’s founding CEO said “the relationship with Astrata allows us to leverage the incredible depth of knowledge we have in the marine AIS space and we look forward to showing more commercial customers just how useful AIS technologies can be when you think laterally to solve fleet tracking problems in very innovative ways.”
“We expect customers to gain significant benefit from the tracking solutions developed through this partnership as AIS technology provides the coverage and safety benefits marine fleet operators have been looking for at a relatively low cost,” said Pow Mun. Astrata’s Marine GLP application has the same data rich reporting ability the trucking industry has enjoyed for the past decade, including powerful engine management reporting capabilities.
The principal components of a vessel tracking system are mobile in-vessel devices, a VHF communications network and specialized back-end tracking software. Vesper Marine WatchMate’s and AIS translation software are used as a specialized marine grade mobile device that sends and receives information from the ship. A new or existing VHF network is used to provide coverage in a specific location; this can be installed and maintained by Astrata. Lastly the Astrata Marine GLP application is used for all track and trace, text communication and management reporting for the fleet.
Astrata and Vesper Marine already have global reach in their current operations base and are now able to offer innovative tracking solutions across land and sea. This opens up opportunities for both companies in previously untapped markets.
The agreement between Astrata and Vesper Marine allows both companies to jointly promote vessel-tracking solutions in Asia, UK, the Middle East, Africa and the United States. Considerable interest is now being shown by infrastructure and maintenance companies needing to track and direct vessels working in remote locations.
For more information on Vesper Marine and Astrata, please visit www.vespermarine.com and www.astratagroup.com.