Category "Research"

We are currently developing the world’s best marine routing network, with more than 2 million network points, and of course we want to tell the universe about it. There’s no better place for this than the world’s leading trade fair for logistics, mobility and IT – the transport logistic in Munich. This is where the logistics industry meets.

At the fair we will be presenting, for the first time, the software prototype for the research project MERMAID. The plan is to start selling the routing algorithm in early 2020 or to fully integrate it into our production system. FleetMon is one of the few companies in the world with its own routing network optimized completely for the logistics chain. As part of the MERMAID project, we have worked together with our research partner, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), to further optimize FleetMon’s existing routing algorithm and to extract the last 5 percent.

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Yesterday all project members of the 1st status meeting of the research project EmissionSEA exchanged information about their previous work. Fraunhofer CML, Wismar University of Applied Sciences, DLR, JAKOTA Design Group and FleetMon are developing a software prototype based on AIS data that determines and evaluates the fuel consumption and thus the CO2 emissions of ships. Another goal is to measure performance in order to make the ships comparable with each other. This is because the CO2 emissions of the ships can be put in relation to the distance covered or the speed curve. By calculating an optimal route and speed, a target/actual comparison is possible, which results in an evaluation of the efficiency and performance of a ship. These values help shipping companies to compare their own fleet with the ships of other operators. The mFund project is scheduled to run until 31.12.2020 and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport with around 1.5 million euros.

Why the project? Since 1 August 2018, shipping companies have been obliged to report their CO2 emissions to the EU. The first report is due in 2 weeks (1 April 2019). The reporting obligation applies to the entire voyage of ships sailing in and through European waters.

Yesterday the local television also visited FleetMon, our project manager Carsten Hilgenfeld explained and answered all the questions about the project. You can get a pictorial insight into the research project in the TV.Rostock Nachrichten. Probably tomorrow at 6 p.m. Switch on or visit their media library https://www.tvrostock.de/mediathek.html.

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Last Monday, the 4th of march 2019, the 4th MERMAID Status Meeting took place. At the DLR place in Neustrelitz, the project members: the DLR Institute of Transport Systems Technology, the DLR Institute of Communication and Navigation, DLR Technology Marketing and FleetMon met and exchanged information on the current status. Among other things, the joint appearance at the transport logistic trade fair in Munich from 4 to 7 June 2019 was planned.

What is MERMAID?

The acronym MERMAID stands for Maritime Routing Maps based on AIS Data. In this research project, which started in October 2017, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is developing a method for the automated calculation of plausible ship routes. The aim is to improve the prediction of arrival times in order to optimise logistics chains and corresponding processes for sea transport.

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https://fleetm.one/oplvJj

Kiel. Am Freitag den 17.08. hatte ein Hubschrauber der Bundespolizei aus Fuhlendorf westlich von Helgoland eine 53 Kilometer lange und rund 300 Meter breite Ölspur entdeckt. Die genommenen Proben bestätigten laut Havariekommando den Verdacht, dass es sich bei dem illegal in die Nordsee abgelassenen Stoff um Schweröl handelte.

Was ist geschehen?
Wer möchte das Geschehen untersuchen?

Wir stellen hiermit die AIS-Daten für diesen Bereich in der Zeit vom 16.08. bis zum 17.08.2018 als CSV-Datei zur Verfügung.

Bei Fragen oder möglichen Erkentnissen gern auch Kontakt aufnehmen mit FleetMon.

The barnacles, mussels and algae that get attached to ship’s hulls not only attack the vessel’s protective coating but also increase its flow resistance. Bio-fouling – to use the specialist term – can increase a ship’s fuel consumption by up to 40% and is estimated to cost the global shipping industry over US$150 bn a year. Currently, around 80,000 t of anti-fouling coatings are applied worldwide, with an overall bill for ship owners and operators coming to about US$4 bn a year. The problematic issue is that most marine coatings contain copper. As they get worn off, poisonous substances are released into the water. As a result, organostannic coatings have already been banned and copper-based coatings could well be prohibited in 2018.

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Even though modern-day ships are much better equipped to sail through storms, most sailors prefer to avoid them. Yet according to recent research published in Geophysical Research Letters by Joel Thornton and his colleagues from the University of Washington in Seattle, some storms may actually be caused by ships themselves. They have shown that lightning strikes in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea occur almost twice as frequently along shipping lanes as in other areas of these waters.

The researchers worked extremely thoroughly, investigating some 1.5 bn lightning strikes recorded by the World Wide Lightning Location Network between 2005 and 2016. Fascinatingly, they discovered that the strikes happened over seawater were concentrated on much-frequented shipping lanes, and in particular the one that runs from south of Sri Lanka to the northern entrance of the Straits of Malacca and from there on to Singapore.

Wind or air movements alone were ruled out as causing such a concentration of thunderstorms, as the atmospheric conditions outside these shipping lanes were no different. That ships are made of metal and their superstructures are the tallest objects in an otherwise fairly flat expanse of water was also thought to be improbable because vessels only occupy a tiny fraction of the area covered by these shipping lanes.

The most likely explanation is sulphur-rich particulate pollution from ship emissions. Burning sulphur-rich marine diesel produces soluble sulphuric oxides that act as nuclei for the condensation of small cloud-forming droplets. When carried upwards by convection, these small droplets form storm clouds from which bolts of lightning can emerge. But the prospects for fewer lightning strikes in these shipping lanes are good. Standard bunker fuel currently has an average sulphur content of 2.7%. From 2020 it should be down to 0.5% if the IMO rules are obeyed.

The Ferderal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) announced the Year of science 2016/17 with the motto “Seas and Oceans – Discovering, Using, Protecting“.

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