The MARENOR Project – Maritime Radio System Performances in the High North

摘要

This paper describes the main objectives and early achieved results from the MARENOR project. MARENOR is financed by the Research Council of Norway as well as Norwegian industry partners from oil and gas (EM survey company EMGS), fisheries (shipping company and shrimp trawler Remoy), positioning and navigation suppliers (Kongsberg Seatex and Polar Science Guiding) and telecommunication service suppliers (Telenor Satellite Broadcasting). Academic partners are MARINTEK, SINTEF ICT, University of Svalbard from Norway and Wroclaw University of Technology from Poland. MARENOR was kicked off in February 2012 and will end in February 2015. Test equipment for measuring system performance of navigation and communication systems in the High North has been installed at two vessels (Atlantic Guardian and Remoy) and at Kjell Henriksen Observatory at Svalbard. The data to be measured include performance parameters from navigation and communication systems, ionospheric parameters, atmospheric parameters, ship movements and positions. The MARENOR results will be applicable to all offshore and maritime related companies who are running, or are planning to run, operations in the Arctic, especially in areas above 70 degrees north. In areas below 75 degrees north one usually has access to several VSAT communication systems. However, already at 70 degrees North one can experience instability and abruptions, which have unwanted consequences for advanced and expensive marine operations. Raised awareness about the communication challenges and proposed solutions to overcome these challenges will be the main outcome of the MARENOR project. To the petroleum industry in specific, the MARENOR project will raise awareness on navigation and communication challenges in the High North, it will provide an overview of today's situation on navigation and communication systems in the High North and it will provide an understanding of actions that need to be taken in order to improve the navigational and communication issues in the High North. The main contents of the paper are: 1. Overview of navigation and communication challenges in the High North versus user needs 2. Coverage areas of different satellite communication systems in the High North 3. External influencing factors on navigation and communication system performance 4. A description of the MARENOR measurement campaigns and a peak at the achieved results so far