JRC REVIEW No.59 Technical Reports

Ship Navigation Support Systems

Development of Chart Radar Complied with New IMO Standard

- Ship Navigation Support Systems -

The modernization of shipping increasingly requires safe and efficient navigation. The transition to IBS for the requirement is proposed and classification society has defined requirements of IBS. DNV obliges installation of Chart Radar as configuration equipment of INS, which is defined as sub system of IBS. Therefore Chart Radar is required as safer navigational equipment from the market. On the other hand, the navigational Radar which will be installed after 1st July 2008 has required to comply with IMO standard MSC.192 (79) . Therefore JRC has developed the new Chart Radar which can comply with new IMO standard and satisfy the demand of the market, and also get higher performance and reliability than past product. This equipment will be a product to contribute for safer navigation.

Koichi Ogura
Hideo Mochizuki
Akihisa Shimozumi
Yoshiyuki Kamei

Development of JMA-610 River Radar for European River

- Ship Navigation Support Systems -

The river radar is a radar installed for the ship operated in a European international river, for example, the Rhine. The inland transportation demand for the ship increases in Europe where the canal transport links develop as sailing from the North Sea to the Black Sea can be possible after the canal between the Rhine and the Danube was completed in 1992. The river radar which has higher range discrimination than the marine radar needs to be installed in order to sail safely along many narrow waterways in the rivers connected with the canal. JRC has newly developed the JMA-610 river radar which features higher performance and more useful functions than the former model JMA-609.

Tomoyasu Ito
Takeshi Mizoguchi
Hiroshi Nakamura
Kenjiro Okadome
George Higuchi

Development of GPS Compass with Heave Measurement Function

- Ship Navigation Support Systems -

In normal ship navigation up until recently, the means used to measure the heading of a ship has been a gyrocompass or a magnetic compass. However, with the adoption of the installation requirements in SOLAS-V in July 2002, all passenger ships and all ships from 300 to 500G/T traveling international routes are required to carry a new directional sensor: a Transmitting Heading Device (THD) . Since then, as the ISO standard for THDs, ISO-22090-3, has been adopted, THDs have been certified as MED devices, etc., use of GPS compasses with low price and high functionality has become widespread. Applications of this GPS compass in a variety of fields are drawing attention. This report introduces the JLR-21/31 GPS Compass, which has a high speed position updating function that primarily utilizes a heave measurement function, one example of GPS compass applied technology. Moreover, this report introduces a use example and an evaluation result based on data.

Hiroya Suzuki
Koji Ogawa
Mikio Nakamura

Development of Inmarsat Fleet Broadband FB500 JUE-500

- Ship Navigation Support Systems -

In maritime satellite communication field, the broadband ship-shore communication is required than ever. Due to advancing render seamless with terrestrial network and variously growing user's demands not only managing ship's operation but also satisfying crew and passenger's private use. In response to this situation, Inmarsat launched the Fleet Broadband (FBB) service system in November 2007. In the same time JRC has developed and released JUE-250 which is the world's first Ship Earth Station for this FBB system, and succeeding to the technology, JRC has developed and released JUE-500 which performs higher-speed data communication and wider-area FAX transmission than JUE-250. JUE-500 is designed to connect a lot of terminals, such as telephones, PCs, and the external buzzers, it satisfies the demand of the vessels. JUE-500 is a pipeline of the remote supervision function and the maintenance communication function for the navigation equipments and the communications equipments in the ship from land.

Shintaro Inoue
Hirohisa Kusano
Kazufumi Igarashi
Katsumi Yazawa
Yusuke Katoh

Development of 150W MF/HF radio equipment

- Ship Navigation Support Systems -

MF/HF radio equipment is required to install to the SOLAS Convention ships as the important equipment of the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) , and is used for communication such as routine, distress and safety purposes with ship stations and/or coast stations. To design for easy installation not only in the SOLAS Convention ships but also in work boats, JRC has developed the MF/HF radio equipment digitalized.

Takeshi Okude
Yoshihiko Imada
Shuji Furuta
Hirotaka Okamoto
Yasuhiko Naitoh

Marine Wave Observation System with Radar

- Ship Navigation Support Systems -

Wave information is important for safe and economic navigation, and for protection of marine environment. The researches to reduce the GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions from shipping require more detail wave information.

The marine wave observation system is an equipment to observe ocean waves by using a radar. A X-band marine radar is used as a sensor. This system outputs wave height, direction, speed and length by analyzing sea clutter observed with the radar. JRC has been working on the development of the radar wave observation system installed at coast since 1990's and succeeded in its commercialization in 2004. JRC presents the marine wave observation system based on the technology here.

Keiichi Hirayama
Keiichi Oka
Mitsunori Baba

Development of JHF-307 Series AIS Base Station

- Ship Navigation Support Systems -

AIS base stations continue to be installed in congested sea areas and major harbors throughout the world in increasing numbers, as a tool for Vessel Traffic Services (hereafter "VTS") which perform navigation management of vessels, and as a means to vessel tracking that is used in port management and port services.

JRC was developing AIS base stations based on the recommendation issued by IALA (International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities) , even before international standards for AIS base stations were issued. However, upon the issuance of International Standard IEC62320-1, JRC developed a new type AIS base station, JHF-307, in order to compact size, incorporate redundancies, enable IP communication, and improve maintainability. This document introduces the JHF-307.

Manabu Sunose
Tatsuyuki Takahashi
Yoshio Sakakimoto
Hiroyuki Nagatsuka
Hiroshi Honda

Advanced Navigation System

- Ship Navigation Support Systems -

JRC has developed an advanced navigation system for the purpose of research and development regarding maritime traffic and support for the training of maritime traffic professionals, and has delivered this system to Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology (national university) . This system will aid in the training of advanced level technicians and researchers in the field of maritime traffic science and technology.

This system is intended to effectively integrate and carry out the functions of collection, management, analysis, and display of a wide variety of data of many types regarding maritime traffic.

Juichi Suzuki

Navigation Support Device-Related Technologies

Development of X-Band Shipborne Solid-State Radars

- Navigation Support Device-Related Technologies -

Maintenance-free radars are strongly demanded by customers, because radars are more and more frequently relied upon for ensuring safe navigation of vessels-consequently making the maintenance costs burden to replace magnetrons with limited life. On the other hand, radar frequency band is demanded to be narrowed because of the present congestion of radio frequency resources. In response to those demands, JRC has developed X-band solid-state radars for Safety Of Life At Sea (SOLAS) vessels. Due to the stable oscillation by the solid-state device and the waveform optimization technique applied, the developed radar has successfully reduced the necessary bandwidth down to 70%. Furthermore, we have confirmed through the field evaluations on a practical vessel that the developed solid-state radar achieves the matching sensitivity despite its 300 W of transmission, and the superior clutter suppression performance in comparison with the existing magnetron radars, as the benefit from the pulse compression and the coherent processing.

Masanori Sudoh
Hiroki Sugawara
Masaya Sawayanagi
Yukinobu Tokieda

Spot Welding Technology for The Housing of Radar Command Devices

- Navigation Support Device-Related Technologies -

JRC has various types of machine tools for sheet metal processing and machinery processing, so that it can carry out all the steps of manufacturing, from parts processing to surface processing. In order to raise our customers' satisfaction with the Quality, Cost, and Delivery time (QCD) of our maritime devices, JRC is constantly searching for ways to make improvements in its sheet metal and machinery processing, considering the most suitable processing methods and steps, and striving for higher productivity. This paper gives an outline of JRC's exclusive spot welding technology used for manufacture of the housing for radar command devices.

Tomonaga Ohta
Eiji Ito

Technical Papers

Development of Deep Doppler Current Meter

- Technical Papers -

The Doppler current meter is a fishery instrument that measures the direction and the speed of tidal current in each depth, and displays it on the graphics screen by the vector and the numerical value, and the key role is borne in deciding the position and timing that the round haul netter throws the fishing net. It is necessary to expand the fishing net at the depth of the aim to raise the haul. Therefore, before throwing the fishing net, it becomes important to grasp the tidal current from the vicinity of sea surface to the aim depth that the fishing net arrives at. Recently, needs of the tidal current measurement of large depth had risen in the trawler and the gill netter, etc. besides the round haul netter.

Our company devised the improvement of the receiving signal processing and the display method, and have developed Doppler current meter JLN-650 that was able to confirm the tidal current from the vicinity of the sea surface to large depth almost continuously, and introduce it as follows.

Osamu Shinohara
Kenya Maeda
Hisao Miyamoto

Other Technical Information