POLARYS Project: Reinforcing maritime safety

The main objective of the POLARYS project is to increase maritime safety and efficiency in navigation and emergency management. All this by developing a novel VDES transceiver (VHF Data Exchange System) and its complementary systems. This system allows the exchange of information related to maritime safety between vessels, and between them and terrestrial/satellite infrastructures.

In the field of the POLARYS project, an application for maritime surveillance and assistance to the navigation will be developed and supported by VDES technology. All information will be available in real time through a GIS 3D application (3D Geographic Information System) designed to be used in both control and command posts, and mobile platforms that have AIS/VDES receivers. In addition, the platform will allow the inclusion of different sensors and alarms related to the maritime and physical safety of vessels, thus providing an integral onboard safety system compatible with VDES.

The main tasks of the project are as follows:

• Study and development of the VDES standard and its application in the scope of the project.
• Study of contributions and improvements provided by the development and implementation of VDES on the AIS system.
• Development of a quick response UAV unit (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) that gives the system more information coming from embedded systems (photographs, video analysis, meteorological sensors, infrared and night vision).
• Development of GIS 3D software of high performance, robustness and efficiency, and with multilayer representation (vectorial cartography, meteorological information, AIS, VDES, UAV).

The POLARYS project is being developed by a consortium led by Retevisión (Cellnex group) that count on the participation of companies Bastet, Egatel, Insitu, Scio and the technology centers Cinae and Gradiant. The project has an expected length of 3 years (2016-2018) and has the support and funding of CDTI (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico e Industrial) through the program FEDER INNTERCONECTA-2016 (EXP 00091271 / ITC-20161120).