MASS UK Industry Conduct Principles and Code of Practice 2022 (V6)

10.7.2 Third party data feeds, including Notices to Mariners and other bulletins, may also be required, subject to their
limitations, including:
tide tables and atlases, and the latest Notices to Mariners. These can be obtained from an ADMIRALTY
Distributor.
n AIS data;
n Weather forecast data;
n Tidal almanac data.
n ENCs
n High resolution bathymetry
n Environmental Protected Areas
n Wrecks
n Cables
n Anchorage areas
n Vessel manoeuvring restrictions and constraints
This data, which can largely be obtained from the UK Hydrographic Office, may be used in the planning, and
execution and monitoring stages of an operation.”
The exact number of, and performance requirements for, these sensors will be dependent on the MASS category,
level of control and the operating area as defined in the risk assessment. The Global Navigation Satellite (GNSS)
system deployed must comply with any best practice guidance for GNSS issued by UK authorities.
10.8.2 During the execution and monitoring of MASS voyages, including testing and trials of MASS, it is again advised
that official navigation products, services and data should be used, including Notices to Mariners and other
bulletins. As outlined in Para 10.7.1, ADMIRALTY Distributors can supply these products. However, it is recognised
that these products are intended for humans to use whilst on board navigating a vessel and as such may not
offer the optimum solution for autonomous navigation systems. To that end the UK Hydrographic Office is making
richer data sets available that can be used within the MASS navigation system during execution and monitoring
of MASS operations. These data sets include:
n AIS data;
n Tidal almanac data;
n ENCs;
n High resolution gridded bathymetry;
n Environmental Protected Areas;
n Wrecks;
n Cables;
n Anchorage areas;
n Vessel manoeuvring restrictions and constraints.
10.7.3 GNSS and, in particular, the US Global Positioning System (GPS), is pervasive across our increasingly digital
infrastructure, enabling positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) applications. The ease of implementation of GPS
receivers, particularly for timing and synchronisation, has led to unknown dependencies across critical national
infrastructure. GNSS are very vulnerable to interferences, such as jamming, spoofing and solar storms, potentially
costing the UK £5.2b over a five-day outage. The recent Blackett Report on satellite dependencies for position
and timing highlights these vulnerabilities and the lack of awareness of the dependency across sectors.
10.7.4 The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) contributes to the formulation of the global time scale, UTC (Coordinated
Universal Time), and manages the UK’s real time implementation, UTC(NPL). Direct access to this UTC reference
offers the UK a source of time, independent to GNSS and not susceptible to the same vulnerabilities. NPL are
leading the development of a resilient national timing infrastructure, providing GNSS independence, and access
to sovereign capability (UTC(NPL)). This National Timing Centre will offer a resilient core UTC(NPL), distributed
across secure hosting facilities in the UK.
10.7.5 In addition, the NTC will begin addressing the UK skills gap in timing and will be provisioning access nodes to
engage industry and academia, disseminating reference time and frequency signals, toward supporting the
development of a UK supply chain for timing products and services. This capability, covering infrastructure and
processes, products and services, could be exported globally, maintaining our heritage and leadership in time
and time dissemination.
10.8 NAVIGATION PRODUCTS & DATA
10.8.3 Furthermore, the UK Hydrographic Office is working on the International Hydrographic Organisation’s (IHO) next
generation of navigation products and standards, collectively known as the S-100 standards. These new standards
will begin to replace the ENC data standard (S-57) and will introduce new standards for navigation data sets such
as gridded bathymetry and tidal data. These standards are still under development. However, in the future they
will become the IMO mandated standards in manned shipping and are therefore likely to be endorsed for
unmanned shipping. Sample data sets for trial purposes can be downloaded from the UKHO’s ADMIRALTY
website https://discover.admiralty.co.uk/access-data/s-100.
10.9 RESILIENCE OF POSITION FINDING
10.9.1 A navigation system must be able to provide continuity of service; that is the determination of a vessel’s position,
to an acceptable level of accuracy in all circumstances which may be encountered during the vessel’s intended
operations.
10.9.2 Resilience should be delivered through the selection of sources of positional information which offer independent
Primary, Tertiary and Backup sources of position. It should be accepted that a drop off in accuracy may be
inevitable with the loss of higher tier sources of position, however the three tiers of position finding should enable
the vessel to be safely navigated throughout the voyage in the event of disruption to two of the minimum three
sources of positional information. It is prudent to consider the Primary and Tertiary sources in the context of
maximising accuracy, while a Backup source should be that which provides the greatest resilience when used
with the appropriate navigation techniques and processes.
10.8.1 During the planning phase of MASS operations, including testing and trials of MASS, official and up to date
navigation products, services or data (i.e. issued by or on the authority of a Government or authorised
Hydrographic Office) should be used for the intended voyage or area of operation. This will demonstrate
responsible use of the shared water space, best practice situational awareness and is in line with the International
Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Chapter V – Safety of navigation. These official navigation
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products should include, but are not limited to, paper and/or electronic nautical charts and data, paper and/or
nautical publications including radio signals, lists of lights and sailing directions, paper or digital applications for
10.9.3 By examining the sources and applicable navigation techniques and processes available during each of the
stages of the vessels intended operations it should be possible to identify the most appropriate Primary, Tertiary
and Backup sources of position, recognising that these may change based on the area and nature of the operation.
10.9.4 In more complex systems, the use of Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) to bridge the gap between disruptions
and outages may be of benefit.
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