MARINE PARK ENHANCED APPLICATIONS BASED ON USE OF INTEGRATED GNSS SERVICES

Transcription

1 MARINE PARK ENHANCED APPLICATIONS BASED ON USE OF INTEGRATED GNSS SERVICES Valerio Corini NAIS Srl, Via Andrea Noale 345/A, Rome, Italy, Tel: , Fax: , Massimo Pichini NAIS Srl, Via Andrea Noale 345/A, Rome, Italy, Tel: , Fax: , Abstract The MEDUSE project [5] has been co-funded by the European Union under the 7 th Framework Programme and managed by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) in order to design, develop at prototype level and demonstrate on the field an integrated system based on navigation technologies and a serviceoriented IT Infrastructure devoted to the following application areas: (a) enhanced control of the park accesses for the marine parks management institutions, (b) location based services and information to the park visitors. At present, the use of GNSS in the maritime sector is wide and fundamental, but mainly in relation to Regulated segment and functionally to: general navigation, SAR and collision avoidance. Still a broad range of applications can actually be enabled by Satellite navigation technologies in the Unregulated/Leisure segment, particularly in relation to the monitoring and control of marine protected areas through those type of applications so-called liability critical, in which the boat position can be used to certify economic transactions or law-enforcement actions. In this relation EGNSS (EGNOS and in future GALILEO) matches the necessary performance requirements, as stated in [3]. During the last years Maritime Regulators such as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) were actively engaged both in the Regulated and in the Unregulated/Leisure segment, and in the recognition of GNSS and EGNSS (together with other radio-navigation systems) as key technologies for the maritime sector. Anyway the Leisure segment is still unregulated and under-covered in terms of application of GNSS technologies (except for applications from some big market player), especially in relation to the advantages that EGNSS could bring to the segment. Apart from supporting a rebalancing of the weights of regulated vs unregulated vessels in the fruition of functions transversal to the two segments, such as general navigation, collision avoidance, traffic management and search and rescue, EGNSS characteristics such as position accuracy, integrity, availability and authentication could prove essential to the development and regulation of the leisure segment also in relation to Port approaches and specific interest areas (e.g. Marine Protected Areas) access, helping the opening of a new market for the related technologies. Apart from the technological point of view, a strong limitation to the expansion of GNSS applications in these fields is often represented by the slowness (sometimes reluctance) of Institutions (e.g. Park Managers) to change their operational procedures, actually triggered by paper-based permits, to position-based procedures, especially if there is the lack of guarantee on the reliability of the signal in space for the related position solution. Thus, to help Park Managers, Institutions and Commercial actors safeguard the environment of the marine areas, monitor them and put the seeds for an economic favorable value chain, and, contemporarily, to ease up, encourage and augment the leisure boat owners capacity and quality in the visit of the marine areas, MEDUSE targeted to take advantage from the use of EGNSS and massmarket mobile devices in the realization of a two-way data link between:

2 Park Institutions (by providing them with tools and services) and Park Users (by providing them with useful LBS services), Three categories of services were prototyped within the Project to match the two-way data link: LBS Applications: to easily provide visitors with useful information certified and updated by local Authorities, thus enhancing their appreciation of the park and the safety of navigation; Surveillance Applications: to enhance the capabilities of the Institutions to monitor the marine park area and take timely and right corrective actions; Regulated Applications: to provide a certified infrastructure for those applications that must strictly respect specific institutional rules, constraints and standards in order to prevent any problem and/or disputes related with liability. Introduction to the MEDUSE Project Marine parks are areas which deserve an extremely care of the ecosystem and as such are usually subject to severe restrictions applied to their end users, first of all leisure boats and local operators. In order to limit and control the access to restricted areas and the transit speed, very often parks management organisations force users to request for a permit (e.g. daily or weekly, free of charge or not) without which the boats are not allowed to enter the marine park. In compliance with the different ways for accessing the park, also permits are different (e.g. transit and anchorage, shore fishing, sea fishing, scuba diving ). As a consequence, park authorities need to define a zoning map of the different marine park areas (each area may have associated a different set of access rules) and to control the access to those areas by the park visitors. On the other hand there is a growing demand of services at sea by the park visitors that very often see the payment of the entry permit as an unfair fee. Moreover, there s often an excessive plurality of sources of information on the area, both Institutional and privately produced, that are not always certified and/or easily accessible (not georeferenced and displayed on map, difficult to access on smartphones), thus realizing both a limit and a risk in the way GNSS-enabled technologies can help in enhancing the fruition of the area by the visitor. As an example, in the period Jan-Oct 2012 the La Maddalena Marine Park registered a total of requests for access authorizations for leisure boats, of which 7190 only in the month of August; few vessels could be engaged in the access control by the Park Managers; local ordinances were published by the responsible Capitaneria di Porto department only via PDF or Word files, and with a bureaucratic text on an inner page of their general web portal. Result: many users didn t pay the access fee and disregarded the access rules, causing economic loss and dangers both for safeguard of the marine environment and for navigation safety. In this scenario, in line with growing attention to the transfer to the market of EGNSS in the maritime sector (stated also in [1] and in [2]), in preview of eventual future adaptations of European directives (52/2004 Integration of on-board units into vehicles) to the maritime sector (for example, in relation to integration of on-board units into vehicles, integration with other existing functions, integration of other devices in the future ), and in line with National directives (PGTL - General Plan for Transport and Logistics, Ministry of Transport and Navigation, 2001) in relation to revitalisation of the railways and of maritime and river transport, the MEDUSE Project, sponsored and co-financed by EC through it s Framework Program 7, has proven to provide efficient solutions based on GNSS technology able

3 to support a change toward the approach to demand management at the same time increasing the quality and completeness of visit of the MPA by leisure boat owners. The EC has included in its Framework Programmes (lastly with H2020), studies and developments of applications within the maritime sector that would take full advantage of the satellite navigation technologies and EGNOS-Galileo in particular. The main objective the EC has sought to attain through the project was the development of a prototype service infrastructure based on GPS/EGNOS-GALILEO - for the delivery of innovative location based services and park monitoring support services within restricted access maritime areas (parks, reserves) to the following customer categories: I. Institutional Marine parks and restricted marine areas management organizations; II. Private - Marine parks and restricted marine areas users (leisure boats); III. IV. Commercial Commercial operators acting within restricted areas (e.g. cruise boats); Law Enforcement Marine police authorities (Coast Guard, Police, Park Marine Control body). Thus: contributing to the preservation of the ecosystem of marine parks and marine reserve areas by providing park managers with efficient tools for exercising access control, management and planning; providing park visitors and commercial operators with a set of location based services and flexible payment models that improve the quality of the visit. In the reference context described above, the Project has designed, developed and tested the following prototype components and services: Components: o Web 2.0 Platform o Mobile App for visitors o Mobile App for the park surveillance staff (MCB-App) o Mobile App for LBS commercial operators (LBS-App) o A next generation EGNOS-ready Marine Terminal enabling regulated applications o Regulated Applications Services: o Information Services to provide visitors with geo-referenced and updated info on the area, and to collaborate with the institutions by signalling events at sea (e.g. Oil Spill) o Social Networking Services to allow visitors exchange their position and chat during visit of the Marine Park o Location Based Services to support local operators wishing to provide services at sea (e.g. water re-fill) o Access Control for Tour Operators to allow park managers configure touristic itineraries while safeguarding the Marine Park o Booking Services for mooring buoys reservation o Pay-per-use for access to specific zones to allow the calculation of position and timerelated payments by taking advantage of EGNOS and GALILEO o Violations Certified Services for the identification and management of violations to access control rules o Navigation Services for safe routes to given destinations o Monitoring and Statistics functions in relation to accesses to the Marine Park. Figure 1: High Level Architecture

4 As a result, MEDUSE could generate the following benefits: Provide capability for analysing in detail the park users fluxes Improved capability for detecting illegal accesses, thus increasing the level of funding to the benefit of Park authorities and enabling higher investment levels on preservation of the natural environment Job and business opportunities for existing and newcomers service providers Possibility to provide navigation assistance to private and commercial users, thus improving the safety level in the marine park area Capability at some point in time to support violation detection and, Law Enforcement thus fostering the safety level in the marine park area Possibility of providing general information and assistance services to private and commercial users Two-way data link As described above, also due to the big size of the areas and to the huge number of visitors in the high season, users of Marine Park areas (ranging from Park managers, to Visitors, Commercial Operators and Law Enforcement) are currently suffering from the limitations of the technologies currently used for control functions, services provision, use of services and enjoyment of visit to the park. While Park Managers and Law Enforcement Authorities struggle with limited resources in ever more complex access management procedures and violations control, commercial and private users complain about high cost when compared to the services rendered, as well as some difficulty in access to timely, certified and useful information. By both points of view, the use of satellite technology, integrated with mass-market mobile devices and wireless communication channels could trigger that so long-awaited evolution, able to set up a new model for management and use of marine parks. Acceptance on the part of private and commercial users of a system capable of monitoring and managing non-invasively their traffic in specific zones of the marine area, may in fact be fed by the ability to provide them with services and information otherwise difficult to reach. The establishment of this virtuous circle could be facilitated by the application of the above technologies in the creation of a two-way data link between Park Institutions (by providing them with tools and services) and Park Users (by providing them with useful LBS services). However, a balance need to be find between user expectations and actual characteristics of the implied technologies (e.g. GNSS accuracy and reliability) for the realization of a business model that s contemporarily reliable, affordable and desirable (mainly by private users). In this relation, the MEDUSE Project has focused in research and development Figure 2: The two Solutions approach activities targeted to the validation of the twoway data link model bringing advantages from the use of GPS/EGNOS-GALILEO and massmarket devices through two technological Solutions: LBS Services (including both information and surveillance services) and Regulated applications. With respect to the end user segment, MEDUSE has chosen a two solutions approach with the objective of satisfying both the urgency of developing concrete operational and commercial responses to end user needs and the need for preparing the way to full enabled regulated applications.

5 The two solutions share a common Service and Control Center that provides web access to all users and orchestrates the MEDUSE marine services. The demonstration of the two Solutions lasted three days and was attended by the participation of representative from the community of the end users: park institutions (La Maddalena and Bocche di Bonifacio) and the Italian Coast Guard. 1. Solution A: LBS Services Solution A is targeted to marine park visitors and marine park management institutions. The system provides park visitors with location-based services available through a mobile application that can be downloaded and installed into the user mobile device before accessing the park. Park managers receive location information from the users while visiting the park and can use this information to improve their control activities (for example excluding from the control activities those boats using the MEDUSE application since they have a regular entry permit). A number of services are provided to the end users based on their position (e.g.: collection of waste at sea, navigation services, booking services, social networking, and reception of special events from the park). Park visitors can also use the MEDUSE marine app to report relevant environmental events to the park managers that can promptly react. A dedicated mobile application has been developed for the LBS operators and for the park surveillance personnel responsible of the controls at sea. MEDUSE has identified, developed and demonstrated a number of potential LBS marine services. List of LBS Services demonstrated: Park accesses monitoring, Touristic boats tour planning & monitoring, LBS Service provision, Information, Find my friend, Booking, Access control, Navigation. Figure 3: Zoning, Monitoring and Statistics Solution A provides an immediate answer to MPA needs and can be quickly brought to the market. The effort required to provide it as a complete solution consists of:

6 consolidating the set of services to be provided to the end users (questionnaires and the demo trial provided a feedback for refining/adding services); making the control center reliable to faults and exception conditions (moving from prototype to commercial product); making the client application available for the major mobile platforms currently present in the market (mainly Apple ios) in addition to the Android platform already supported; The operational costs for the Solution A are quite low and the system could be sold as a service (no IT infrastructure to be installed and operated by the park) or as a system (the server application will be installed on the park IT infrastructure). No HW costs are required for the client application. A fee could be paid for the mobile application, incorporated (and thus not visible to the end user) in the cost of the ticket for visiting the park. 2. Solution B: Regulated Applications Solution B complements the services available with Solution A with the provision of pay-per-use services and a support for Law Enforcement activities. Solution A cannot provide this class of services because both of them require that position, velocity and time come from a certified source. Solution B is centred on the prototype of a new generation Marine Terminal developed in the MEDUSE project. The MEDUSE Marine Terminal is based on the marine standard protocol AIS and use EGNOS and, in future, GALILEO, to provide the certification of the boat Figure 4: Pay-per-use Services position required by regulated services and applications such as pay-per-use (similar to the pay-as-you-drive car insurance policy model in the road sector) and Law Enforcement. It is worth to point out that the MEDUSE Marine Terminal does not break the AIS protocol standard but uses existing protocol extension mechanisms (AIS Application Specific Messages) to carry the information required by the MEDUSE regulated services and applications. The Marine Terminal applies the differential corrections and the integrity flags broadcasted by the EGNOS constellation in order to increase the accuracy of the boat position and to compute the horizontal protection level associated to the position. This information provides the required position certification enabling the implementation of the regulated applications above mentioned. Figure 5: Marine Terminal Architecture The adoption of an AIS Class B allows MEDUSE marine terminals to be detected also by the Coast Guard with their AIS receivers. The MEDUSE control centre provides an interface that graphically displays on a map the boats currently in the boundary of the park area with an indication of those boats whose position was detected by the AIS channel. The MEDUSE project has demonstrated that, from a technological point of view, regulated applications can effectively be provided within marine parks making use of the Marine Terminal (MT) and the MEDUSE SCC providing the functions, such as precise positioning, integrity management and flexible service configuration, required to implement those services. What is currently still missing is the regulatory framework under which regulated applications can be made available to the end users.

7 Waiting for the European Union to deliberate the regulation enabling the pay-per-use and Law Enforcement services, the MEDUSE Marine Terminal finds an immediate application since it enables those MEDUSE services that require a better position accuracy with respect to that attainable using only GPS and a certification of the position itself (accuracy and protection level) only achievable with EGNOS. The following Regulated Applications were demonstrated during the MEDUSE trials: Speed Limit violation, Access violation, Pay-per-use, Booking request, Dynamic diving zone creation. Figure 6: Marine Terminal Prototype The use of EGNOS in the project enabled the development of the MEDUSE regulated applications to which it brings the following added values: a) increased accuracy: regulated applications require a better positioning and speed accuracy with respect to that available only with GPS b) position protection level: more important than accuracy is error estimation. The augmentation information broadcasted by EGNOS allows a precise estimation of the positioning error. Depending on the protection level, the service may decide whether to use the boat position to charge a user for a violation or not c) integrity alert: this information is broadcasted by EGNOS and it is used in MEDUSE to decide whether to use the boat position or not to use it at all. The MEDUSE trials dedicated a set of tests to demonstrate the value added by EGNOS in terms of accuracy and integrity status. One of the two Marine Terminals prototypes included some switches that forced specific failure conditions (integrity alert, lack of EGNOS visibility) to stimulate the system and verify how it reacted to such stimuli. Solution B is for the medium/long term and can be easily included in an existing MEDUSE system (a MEDUSE instance can concurrently manage both Solution A and B terminals). It opens a new class of services (pay for how long you stay and where you stay in the marine park area). The marketability of this solution depends on the availability of a new class of marine terminals in the market and of the associated legal service framework. The MEDUSE consortium developed and tested a prototype marine terminal suitable for regulated applications. The MEDUSE Marine Terminal identifies the main characteristics of such a terminal, first of all the use of a more accurate position available through EGNOS corrections and integrity information and in future with GALILEO Commercial Service (in relation to authentication capacity). 3. Conclusion The EC through FP7 and the MEDUSE Team has been investigating the application of GNSS to marine parks applications by co-financing the MEDUSE Project that produced a prototype platform providing services to Marine Park Managers and Visitors, and to Law Enforcement Authorities. In this frame two main categories of applications have been investigated to guarantee the service requirements: Location-Based Services provided through mass-market mobile devices and based on GNSS, provide immediate answers to MPA needs and can be quickly brought to the market (services demonstrated: Park accesses monitoring, Touristic boats tour planning & monitoring, LBS Service provision, Information, Find my friend, Booking, Access control, Navigation), and Regulated applications based on the use of a Marine Terminal, integrating differential corrections and the integrity flags broadcasted by the EGNOS constellation in order to increase the accuracy of the boat

8 position and to compute the horizontal protection level associated to the position to provide liability critical services, like pay-per-use service and support for Law Enforcement activities (services demonstrated: Speed Limit violation, Access violation, Pay-per-use, Booking request, Dynamic diving zone creation). All these services were successfully demonstrated during the MEDUSE system trials performed at La Maddalena during summer The trials shown that without the EGNOS added value the MEDUSE regulated applications can t be provided since GPS lacks the position accuracy and integrity status information required by those services. The Coast Guard participated to the demo providing valuable feedback, and there was an expression of interests from the Bonifacio International Marine Park. Several multimedia material was also collected by the journalists preparing a video on EGNOS in maritime (reachable via The technological main open issues at the end of the project are: 1. Completion of the prototype Marine Terminal; 2. Support for e-ticketing: this feature will attract the interest of those marine parks that should start to introduce a form of payment for accessing the park; 3. Introduce both in the marine mobile application as well as in the Service Control Centre the use of nautical maps. Apart from Marine LBS (e.g. marinas, buoys, fishing activities, cruise boats, charter companies), the commercial viability of the system is applicable whenever the marine park area has access limitations to users other than local communities and sometime, or for some part of the year, also to local communities. In the future the commercial viability of the system will be further fostered once the legislation will make compulsory the installation of an AIS-B equipment also on leisure boats, and a specific regulation will be published to make legal and certifiable the use of positioning information in the maritime context for the Coast Guard and in general for security and legal/insurance responsibility reasons. It is also envisaged the possibility to extend in future, with the necessary technical adaptations, the MEDUSE range of applications from pure coastal areas also to connecting sea protected areas according to indications coming from the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the World Parks Congress, and the Convention on Biological Diversity that have all committed to a goal of establishing a global network of marine protected areas. Finally, a plan for the transfer to the market of MEDUSE outputs has already started: the MEDUSE ready-to-market services are being released within CALIPSO (see [4]) Service Platform (Web-based + Android App services for MPAs managers and visitors). The MEDUSE regulated services need further research activities to be carried out and an H2020 Proposal was submitted in April 2014 at this scope. References 1 Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, New priority domains and possible actions for the period , page 35 2 EC Enterprise and Industry Directorate-Generale, Applications of EU satellite navigation programmes (Galileo and EGNOS), page 2. 3 International Maritime Organization Resolution A.915(22), Appendix 3 4 Info at service at and CALIPSO App on the Google Play Store 5 Massimo Pichini, MEDUSE Final Report