International Journal
on Marine Navigation
and Safety of Sea Transportation
Volume 2
Number 3
September 2008
241
Distributed Navigational Alert Management
J. Behnke
Bundesamt für Seeschiffahrt und Hydrographie, Hamburg, Germany
C. Becker
Raytheon Anschütz GmbH, Kiel, Germany
ABSTRACT: The team of authors is engaged in the IMO corresponding group on INS / Alert Management
and in national task groups primarily specialising in “Navigational Alert Management” matters.
This presentation is based on the outcome of serious discussions carried out at different work group sessions
in Germany and has been widely used as a guideline when details of an Alert Management concept are
analysed (e.g. alert related communication and de-escalation strategies).
A separate paragraph of definitions within this presentation describes “Function Alerts” which are not relevant
for the navigational tasks carried out by the officer of the watch. Alerts appear to be nonrelevant became the
subject under discussion whether their announcement should be automatically filtered out by a navigational
module within an INS. This could be one effective method of resolution to minimise (the number of high
priority) alerts.
1 PRESENTATION OF A CONCEPT OF A
DISTRIBUTED ALERT MANAGEMENT
START OF PRESENTATION ON NEXT PAGE
Fig. 1. Introduction of the authors
Fig. 2. Introduction of the authors
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Fig. 3. Introduction of the subject-matter
Fig. 4. The purpose of an alert management
Fig. 5. Results of investigations
Fig. 6. Results of investigations
Fig. 7. Results of investigations
Fig. 8. Results of investigations
Fig. 9. Main tasks of the Alert Management
Fig. 10. Functional integration
243
Fig. 11. Functional integration
Fig. 12. Functional integration
Fig. 13. Functional integration
Fig. 14. Functional integration
Fig. 15. Distributed concept
Fig. 16. Distributed concept
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Fig. 17. Distributed concept
Fig. 18. Distributed concept
Fig. 19. Distributed concept
Fig. 20. Conclusions to resume the discussion
2 CONCLUSIONS
It appears feasible to minimise the number of alerts
especially those on a high priority.
The conceptual design supports the
implementation of “Function Alerts” and “System
Alerts” and the capability of navigational system
level modules to acknowledge “Function Alerts”.
Easily manageable alert related communication
will be supported by this concept.
This presentation is a condensed version of an
Alert Management concept based as a full version
on different series of slides dealing with topics
like “State Monitoring”, “Alert State Transitions”,
“Alert Announcement State Transitions”, “Escala-
tion
Strategy” (to handle unacknowledged alerts),
“Deescalation Strategy” (to minimise the number of
high priority alerts) and “Consistency of Alert
Presentation within a Navigational System”.
German workgroups deal successfully with these
series of slides as a “starting point” whenever
they plan to recommence discussions on related
matters.
Additionally the slides are applied as a “toolbox”
useful to align the picture of an Alert Management
Structure in the mind’s eye of each member of a
working group during discussions.
These series of slides are especially suited to
mediate between the generic requirements laid down
in the Performance Standards and the “Operational
and Performance Requirements” to be implemented
in IEC’s International Standards.
