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1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Current chart carriage requirements

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the

United Nations specialized agency with

responsibility for the safety and security of shipping

and the prevention of marine and atmospheric

pollution by ships. The agency has established a

comprehensive regulatory framework of over 50

international conventions and agreements that allow

all of its 174 Member States to consistently implement

and enforce a set of international maritime

regulations.

The International Convention for the Safety of Life

at Sea (SOLAS) is one the key IMO conventions as it

sets minimum safety standards. In particular, SOLAS

Chapter V sets forth the safety of navigation

provisions applicable to all vessels on all voyages. A

key safety provisions is the requirement for all ships

to carry up to date nautical charts and publications

on board to be able to plan and execute the intended

voyage safely. The same Chapter V defines additional

provisions related to use of an Electronic Chart

Display and Information System (ECDIS) an accepted

way of meeting the chart carriage requirements.

NaAVIC, a Free Downloadable ECS App that Runs on

ENC Data Streamed Directly from a Cloud-based

Infrastructure Specifically Designed for Marine

Navigation

D. Peyton & E. Kuwalek

IIC Technologies, Riverdale, Maryland, USA

A. Alla

Naavic

ABSTRACT: NaAVIC, is a free and downloadable Electronic Chart System app specifically developed for boats

of all sizes looking for safe and reliable professional navigation functionality on mobile devices and/or laptops.

The app offers a range of features to make navigation easy and reliable, delivered through a clear and intuitive

interface designed specifically for navigating at sea. The capabilities cover the range of essential features

needed to maintain safety and situational awareness. Separate processes for download and update of the

electronic chart data is not required because data is streamed in real-time from a cloud based open source

database. The data is supplied to NaAVIC from Nautilus Cloud, a cloud based infrastructure designed for

Marine Data, Solutions and Services for Government Organizations, Commercial Industry and Consumers.

Nautilus Cloud is a “cloud native” approach and leverages high quality, open source components as its base

technology. It uses open standards throughout to build a low-cost system which is flexible and has a much

greater degree of interoperability with pre-existing components. A key feature of the Nautilus Cloud platform

is the expansion of data holdings into a much wider family of related geospatial data products including the S-

100 framework, harmonized metadata, raster and real-time sources. In essence, NaAVIC can operate on real-

time and up-to-date information from charting agencies without a separate updating process. This enables the

integration of real-time tides, weather, currents and other oceanographic information.

http://www.transnav.eu

the International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 13

Number 1

March 2019

DOI: 10.12716/1001.13.01.25

238

1.2 Role of International Hydrographic Organization

(IHO)

Although the IMO is responsible for establishing all

key safety provisions which require type approved

ECDIS to be used in conjunction with up to date

official ENC data, it is the IHO who develops and

maintains the portfolio of relevant data standards,

including: S-57 for data content and encoding, S-52

for data rendering, S-58 for data validation, and S-63

for data protection specifically referenced by the IEC

testing standard which verifies an ECDIS against the

IMO performance standard. The IHO is also working

on the new family of S-100 standards that will

eventually replace S-57 for ENC provision.

1.3 SOLAS and Non-SOLAS ships

The rules surrounding carriage requirements for

ECDIS equipment have evolved considerably over

the last 25 years. The implementation path gradually

transitioned ECDIS equipment loaded with Electronic

Navigational Charts (ENCs) from being approved as

permitted replacement for paper charts in 2002 to

eventually becoming a mandatory system for almost

all vessels on international voyages in 2018.

The related rules were implemented using a

rolling timetable factoring in vessel size, type and age

to eventually make ECDIS mandatory to carry for all

vessels over 500 GT. This rolling implementation

schedule distinguishes between the ships which must

carry ECDIS and comply with all related provisions

and those who do not. Fundamentally when ECDIS is

being used to satisfy SOLAS carriage requirements it

must: be type approved, have an adequate backup in

place, be adequately maintained, remain compatible

with the latest applicable International Hydrographic

Organization (IHO) standards and use up to date

ENC data.

1.4 One SOLAS convention - two different user

communities

The ECDIS system is without a doubt one of the most

significant advancements in marine navigation. The

efforts of countless professionals are paying off and

we are observing a well-established ecosystem with

global data coverage, well established international

standards, mature data distribution chains, and

sophisticated bridge systems all greatly contributing

to safety and operational efficiencies.

At the same time, outside the primary SOLAS

community there is a much larger non-SOLAS user

community of smaller, mainly recreational boat

operators which has considerably different

operational needs. This community also has

markedly different service level expectations.

Accustomed to an instant information delivery these

users expect to simply turn on a mobile app and start

navigating with real time data simply “being there”,

without having to go through a complex process of

ordering official ENCs, waiting for them to arrive,

manually uploading and updating them on a

certified piece of equipment - the steps professional

ECDIS users normally have to deal with.

2 INNOVATIONS

2.1 NaAVIC

NaAVIC is a free and downloadable electronic

voyage application that goes beyond the traditional

Electronic Chart System (ECS) app where the data,

including the ENC information, does not physically

reside within the onboard device. Instead, all

navigation data is streamed from an up-to-date

database that exists in the cloud. The on-demand data

delivery model is not confined to conventional chart

data. Whilst it includes ENC-derived data as a base

layer, it is also designed to take additional data

layers. These layers can be user-selected according to

the user’s need to enhance the ECS display

capabilities. For example, data layers can include

raster satellite imagery, high-resolution bathymetry,

weather radar imagery, predicted tides and currents,

as well as real-time weather data streams and domain

and locale-specific information. All data is streamed

through an open source, open standards-based

Nautilus Cloud platform.

The app functions on both Android and iOS

devices, and offers a comprehensive range of

essential features needed to maintain safety and

situational awareness while making navigation easier

and more reliable. There is no downloading of data -

all data, including chart data, is streamed in real-time

from a fully maintained and up-to-date database. The

data comes from the Nautilus Cloud, a cloud-based

infrastructure specifically designed for marine data.

The technology is designed to provide the basis for

maintenance and distribution services for any marine

data supply. Nautilus Cloud adopts a ‘cloud-native’

approach as well as leveraging open standards and

open source components throughout. The result is a

powerful and flexible system with a much greater

degree of interoperability in its components. This

compatibility includes the emerging S-100

framework, harmonized metadata, raster datasets

and real-time sources. The NaAVIC ECS operates on

up-to-date information from data providers. This can

include government agencies looking to make

distribution and accessibility of their data more

efficient without compromising its integrity by

introducing third party distributors. Figure 1 outlines

the key features that NaAVIC offers.

Figure 1. NaAVIC ECS features.

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2.2 The Nautilus Cloud Framework

The data powering the ECS is supplied by Nautilus

Cloud, a cloud-based platform for marine data,

designed for solutions and services within

government organizations, industry and consumers.

Nautilus Cloud is an enterprise-grade system which

is both flexible and has a much greater degree of

interoperability with pre-existing components and

multiple data sources. As such, Nautilus Cloud is

optimized for import, validation, and data

management, as well as commercial distribution of

marine geospatial data for government organizations,

the marine industry, and end consumers. Figure 2

illustrates the many additional ECS features that are

supported by the Nautilus Cloud framework.

Figure 2. Geospatial features supported by NaAVIC ECS.

2.3 Key benefits

One of the key features of Nautilus Cloud is the

expansion of data holdings into a much wider family

of related geospatial data products. It is designed to

handle the many forms of marine geospatial data

under the emerging IHO S-100 framework. The

modular design allows front-end applications to

access the spatial data feed on any platform, from

desktop and mobile platforms to OGC-compliant

web service clients and web map tile services for

onward consumption of data by other organizations.

The NaAVIC ECS app takes full advantage of

many advanced features provided by Nautilus Cloud

making it possible for charting agencies to distribute

pre-updated data in real-time. This includes

distribution of temporal services such as tides,

weather, currents and other oceanographic data. This

achieves a group of three important requirements for

the ECS: content, quality, and data updating.

2.4 Redundancy of Data delivery

NaAVIC addresses the concern of reliable internet

connection by providing a smart, user-controlled data

caching functionality. It is capable of automatically

caching data to ensure consistent availability. Users,

based on their environment, will be able to set the

app to auto-cache required data ahead of time for a

predefined area. Alternatively, they can interactively

define the area to cache before departure. Even for

users using the app in nearshore coastal areas where

modern data networks have coverage readily

available however, caching can fulfill an important

redundancy feature.

2.5 Key enablers

The Nautilus Cloud platform has the following key

features:

 A ’cloud-native’ approach where the technology is

built from components designed to be run solely

from cloud environments.

 A strong integration between data distribution

and storage/management.

 A system leveraging open source components as

its base technology and which utilizes open

standards exclusively building a low-cost system

which is flexible with a great degree of

interoperability.

2.6 Connecting the data producer and end user

The approach taken is a conscious attempt to connect

the user closely with the producer of nautical data.

This closer engagement between supplier and

consumer is a phenomena across the many domains

in the geospatial industry. Data holdings are ever

expanding and becoming more accessible, and under

a common framework, S-100 , which provides

unparalleled opportunities for compatibility and

interoperability between previously unrelated marine

geospatial domains.

This approach facilitates ’pluggable’ architecture

and allows for extensible, customizable data imports

into the system, future-proofing it for a wide variety

of organizational use cases. Additionally, a metadata

management sub-system provides functionality to

allow individual customers to easily generate

metadata records compliant with their individual

national metadata profiles.

2.7 Intelligent voyage visualization

NaAVIC and the Nautilus Cloud also aim to support

the next generation of Intelligent Visualization

technology – “the right information at the right time”

- adding a completely new dimension of

customization to traditional geospatial data

rendering engines. This will make data intuitively

useable for end users and, through web services, to

onward systems and derived applications. This

technology aims to solve the issue of properly

balancing the availability of a wide range of data

layers available but only selectively displaying those

of most relevance to the task at hand.

2.8 Sharing the Journey

We are seeing with land-based journeys and within

recreational activities as a whole that users want to

share. The desire to share individual experiences

comes with a desire to benefit from collective

experiences of like-minded people. This has

propelled social media to be the pre-eminent

guidebook.

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Up until now, ECS catered to the person

controlling all aspects of the vessel, including its

navigation. By utilizing a cloud-based approach with

data streaming, NaAVIC ECS enables all members of

an expedition to more actively engage in the voyage

as well as sharing that voyage to fellow ’marine

friends’. It provides ways for everyone to have a

more enjoyable boating experience, providing an

easy way to monitor the route with the main

navigator, to see the basic boat information such as

location, speed and heading, and exchange

information about various points of interest with

friends.

All users get access to community features, which

include the feature to to post messages, share

pictures, locations and to record and share voyages.

Users can also add location sensitive notifications.

The app also enables crowdsourcing activities by

allowing users to use a set of pre-defined icons to

capture a items of interest to specific communities.

For example, marking new diving spot locations for

the diving user community is as easy as dropping a

marker and the platform will automatically share it

with all other users, a specific group. Users can also

keep all information private if they want to keep their

findings to themselves!

2.9 Flexible Business Model

Nautilus Cloud's commercial distribution interface

can assist organizations who need to sell data as part

of their operating model. By offering both free and

paid access to data, the system gives organizations

the ability to switch between free and cost-recovery

models as their demands dictate. It allows the

substitution of multiple disparate systems which may

be already in place, with a system at substantially

lower costs for implementation and support.

The system uses a highly standardized data

output interface and a comprehensive approach to

data integrity which is crucial in the modern marine

data environment. By providing open and efficient

access to marine data, the system facilitates social and

environmental value (e.g. providing easy

standardized access for data to be used for marine

pollution prevention, alternative energy production

and marine research).

3 CONCLUSION

NaAVIC is a free and downloadable mobile ECS that

represents a new approach where the electronic chart

data does not physically exist within the onboard

computer. The app attempts to thrust the sailing

experience several steps further with all the features

it offers its users. The system provides a flexible

business model by facilitating the ability to switch

between free and cost-recovery models of data

distribution as their requirements dictate.

While the NaAVIC app mainly targets NON-

SOLAS user community, it showcases many

advanced capabilities both the app and the

underlying Nautilus Cloud that could be very useful

for the SOLAS community as well. It is our goal to

see these innovations eventually transitioning into

both communities as we believe they would benefit

greatly vessels alike. Some of the innovations

described aim to inspire both communities to see that

the possibilities of streaming marine data real-time,

consolidating multiple data sources and providing

consistent data access to them is currently achievable.

These advances can be used to power the next

generation of ECDIS and ECS systems untimely

benefiting all mariners.

REFERENCES

International Maritime Organization. Introduction to IMO.

(n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.imo.org/en/About/Pages/Default.aspx

International Maritime Organization. International

Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974.

(n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.imo.org/en/about/conventions/listofconvent

ions/pages/international-convention-for-the-safety-of-

life-at-sea-(solas),-1974.aspx

International Hydrographic Organization. IHO

Publications. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.iho.int/iho_pubs/IHO_Download.htm#S-

Open Geospatial Consortium. OGC Standards. (n.d.).

Retrieved from https://www.opengeospatial.org/docs/is