SCIENCE REVIEW 1987 - Bedford Institute of Oceanography

Research
The EC will enable shipping to move
under conditions where at present it would
remain tied up and to navigate more safely
and to tighter schedules at all times. This
will reduce shipping costs, and, once
proved, will also reduce insurance premiums.
It will minimize the risk of grounding
leading to loss of life, property damage and
pollution with its high clean-up costs.
The heart of the EC is the digital data or
EC Data Base (ECDB) it uses to draw the
various chart features on the display. To
date EC manufacturers and mariners have
been digitizing nautical charts themselves
for their systems. In the (near?) future,
when GPS becomes available and the
technology improves the demand for
digital chart data will increase dramatically.
Since Hydrographic Offices are
responsible for producing the nautical
charts the responsibility will naturally fall
on them to supply this data. Most of the
Hydrographic Offices around the world
presently have very little of their nautical
chart information in digital form. Experience
with existing data bases tells us that
long before the full ECDB is available the
problem of keeping it up-to-date will far
outweigh the task of getting old data into it.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact
that, unlike land based data bases where
the users can have easy access via the
phone lines, etc. the users of the ECDB will
be at sea most of the time. Special
internationally agreed upon data exchange
techniques and data formats therefore may
be needed for both the original data and
updates.
A number of activities that are presently
taking place within Canada and internationally
are described in the following
pages.
Precise Integrated Navigation System
(PINS)
With one notable exception most EC
activity in Canada has been in the Canadian
Hydrographic Service (CHS), Department
of Fisheries and Oceans. The
exception is the Precise Integrated Navigation
System, an EC developed by Offshore
Systems Ltd., North Vancouver, B.C. They
first developed their EC to help ships
navigate in the ice-covered Beaufort Sea
during oil exploration. They began marketing
it in 1986 and presently have systems
operating on both coasts of North America
46
as well as on Coast Guard icebreakers in
the St. Lawrence River. They are now
working on a new EC system, the Shipboard
Integrated Navigation and Display
System (SINADS), which will integrate
radar with all the existing features of PINS.
The CHS Electronic Chart Testbed
The CHS EC program was started in the
late seventies and was coordinated by Mike
Eaton, Head, B.I.O. Navigation Group
until just recently when he retired. The
CHS EC program can be broken down
into the following interrelated projects:
- the Electronic Chart Testbed and EC
Specifications
- Electronic Chart Data Base (ECDB)
Studies
- Display Design and Advanced Features
- Data Exchange Techniques and
Formats
The EC Testbed development was started
in 1984:
“1. To develop specifications for the
ECDB to be produced by the CHS
and
2. To investigate the effect of the EC on
safe navigation.”
(Eaton, 1987)
One main design requirement was that the
Testbed should be flexible. Flexibility, that
is, the ability to change the display,
demonstrate different optional approaches
to EC problems, etc. were, and still are,
more important for the Testbed than speed,
user friendliness and other characteristics of
operational systems. In order to achieve the
necessary flexibility it was also decided
to use the Universal Systems Ltd.
(Fredericton, N.B.) Computer Aided
Resource Information System (CARIS) as
the basis for the Testbed because it had the
geographic information management infrastructure
necessary to manage the very
complex EC features and also because
CARIS was already widely used throughout
the CHS. Digital charts had already
been created using CARIS.
At present the EC Testbed consists of a
modified CARIS system and Radar and
Positioning subsystems. The CARIS system
consists of a Digital Equipment Corp.
microvax II computer with 5 megabytes of
Fig. 1. Electronic Chart Testbed display of Halifax Harbour with radar. Ships symbol carries parallel
index bars used to plot clear passage ahead The radar is offset 30 m east from chart because ship
is positioned by GPS NAVSTAR on new satellite datum whereas chart data was on old North
American datum at that time.