A new search-and-rescue service in the Mediterranean Sea: a demonstration of the operational capability and an evaluation of its performance using real case scenarios (original) (raw)
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VISIR (discoVerIng Safe and effIcient Routes) is an operational decision support system (DSS) for optimal ship routing designed and implemented in the frame of the TESSA (TEchnology for Situational Sea Awareness) project. The system is aimed to increase safety and efficiency of navigation through the use of forecast environmental fields and route optimization. VISIR can be accessed through a web interface (www.visir-nav.com) and mobile applications for both iOS and Android devices. This paper focuses on the technological infrastructure developed for operating VISIR as a DSS. Its main components are described, the performance of the operational system is assessed through experimental measurements, and a few case studies are presented.
Reliable and timely information on the environmental conditions at sea is key to the safety of professional and recreational users as well as to the optimal execution of their activities. The possibility of users obtaining environmental information in due time and with adequate accuracy in the marine and coastal environment is defined as sea situational awareness (SSA). Without adequate information on the environmental meteorological and oceanographic conditions, users have a limited capacity to respond, which has led to loss of lives and to large environmental disasters with enormous consequent damage to the economy, society and ecosystems. Within the framework of the TESSA project, new SSA services for the Mediterranean Sea have been developed. In this paper we present SeaConditions, which is a web and mobile application for the provision of meteorological and oceanographic observation and forecasting products. Model forecasts and satellite products from operational services, such as ECMWF and CMEMS, can be visualized in SeaConditions. In addition, layers of information related to bathymetry, sea level and ocean-colour data (chl a and water transparency) are displayed. Ocean forecasts at high spatial resolutions are included in the version of SeaConditions presented here. SeaConditions provides a user-friendly experience with a fluid zoom capability, facilitating the appropriate display of data with different levels of detail. SeaConditions is a single point of access to interactive maps from different geophysical fields, providing high-quality information based on advanced oceanographic models. The SeaConditions services are available through both web and mobile applications. The web application is available at www.sea-conditions.com and is accessible and compatible with present-day browsers. Interoperability with GIS software is implemented. User feedback has been collected and taken into account in order to improve the service. The SeaConditions iOS and Android apps have been downloaded by more than 105 000 users to date (May 2016), and more than 100 000 users have visited the web version.
Emergency management at sea: A decision support system for Search and Rescue operations
Journal of Software and Systems Development, 2016
The relevance of Search and Rescue (SAR) maritime operations has been recently emphasized by the increasing migrations by sea. In the Mediterranean area, for example, a number of boats, often crowded, bad equipped and driven by non-professional sailors, travel from the coasts of Africa and Middle East to the ones of Europe: the wideness of the phenomenon and the occurrence of several mournful events have pushed the Italian government and the European Union to conduct large security operations (e.g. Mare Nostrum and Triton). Therefore, it has become urgent to support Maritime Rescue Coordination Centers and Sub-Centers and provide them with a Decision Support System (DSS) for planning and managing SAR operations at sea. This paper illustrates the background and the research methodology of the research project called "Decision support system for maritime environment emergency management". The project has been carried out from 2011 to 2015 by two Italian companies (i.e. Selex ES-now Leonardo-and Codin SpA) and an Italian public university (i.e. Politecnico di Bari), and funded within the Italian National Operational Programme for "Research and Competitiveness" 2007-2013 (NOP for R&C). Based on an in depth analysis of the literature and a field analysis carried out by adopting Business Process Management techniques, the project team has designed a prototypal DSS that includes some innovative functionalities.
Frontiers in Marine Science, 2019
Search and rescue (SAR) in remote maritime locations is a difficult mission. One of the limitations in these isolated regions is the low density of available oceanographic data for model validation. In order to examine the state of remote search and rescue a review of maritime search theory and advances was conducted. This included basic drift theory, leeway, available environmental data, and the current methods used by the United States Coast Guard for SAR operations. In particular the U.S. Coast Guard's fourteenth district's SAR case history was examined and it was found that 60% of SAR cases fall outside of areas that have high-resolution wind and current data, with only global scale model forecasts available. In addition, 2% of cases occurred in offshore waters (> 12 nm from land) and exceeded 36 h in asset response time. Three SAR simulations were run off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii using the same wind data but different surface current models. These simulations had extremely large (up to 12,000 km 2) search areas, highlighting the need for solutions that narrow these expected areas.
TESSA: design and implementation of a platform for Situational Sea Awareness
Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 2016
This article describes the architecture of Sea Situational Awareness (SSA) platform, a major asset within "TESSA", an industrial research project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research. The main aim of the platform is to collect, transform and provide forecast and observational data as information suitable for delivery across a variety of channels, like web and mobile; specifically, the ability to produce and provide forecast information suitable for creating SSA-enabled applications has been a critical driving factor when designing and evolving the whole architecture. Thus, starting from functional and performance requirements, the platform architecture is described in terms of its main building blocks and flows among them: front-end components that support end-user applications and map and data analysis components that allow for serving maps and querying data. <br><br> Focus is directed to key aspects and decisions about the main issues face...
Advances in search and rescue at sea
Ocean Dynamics, 2013
A topical collection on "Advances in Search and Rescue at Sea" has appeared in recent issues of Ocean Dynamics following the latest in a series of workshops on "Technologies for Search and Rescue and other Emergency Marine Operations" (2004, 2006, 2008, and 2011), hosted by IFREMER in Brest, France. Here, we give a brief overview of the history of search and rescue at sea before we summarize the main results of the papers that have appeared in the topical collection.
An operational search and rescue model for the Norwegian Sea and the North Sea
Journal of Marine Systems, 2008
A new operational, ensemble-based search and rescue model for the Norwegian Sea and the North Sea is presented. The stochastic trajectory model computes the net motion of a range of search and rescue objects. A new, robust formulation for the relation between the wind and the motion of the drifting object (termed the leeway of the object) is employed. Empirically derived coefficients for 63 categories of search objects compiled by the US Coast Guard are ingested to estimate the leeway of the drifting objects. A Monte Carlo technique is employed to generate an ensemble that accounts for the uncertainties in forcing fields (wind and current), leeway drift properties, and the initial position of the search object. The ensemble yields an estimate of the time-evolving probability density function of the location of the search object, and its envelope defines the search area. Forcing fields from the operational oceanic and atmospheric forecast system of The Norwegian Meteorological Institute are used as input to the trajectory model. This allows for the first time high-resolution wind and current fields to be used to forecast search areas up to 60 hours into the future. A limited set of field exercises show good agreement between model trajectories, search areas, and observed trajectories for liferafts and other search objects. Comparison with older methods shows that search areas expand much more slowly using the new ensemble method with high resolution forcing fields and the new leeway formulation. It is found that going to higher-order stochastic trajectory models will not significantly improve the forecast skill and the rate of expansion of search areas.
Decision support system for emergency management of oil spill accidents in the Mediterranean Sea
Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 2016
This paper presents an innovative web-based decision support system to facilitate emergency management in case of oil spill accidents, called WITOL (Where Is The Oil). The system can be applied to create a forecast of oil spill events, evaluate uncertainty of the predictions, and calculate hazards based on historical meteo-oceanographic dataset. To compute the oil transport and transformation WITOIL uses the MEDSLIK-II oil spill model forced by operational meteo-oceanographic services. Results of the modeling are visualized through Google Maps. Special application for Android is designed to provide mobile access to public decision makers, scientific community, and citizens.
Evaluation of the search and rescue LEEWAY model in the Tyrrhenian Sea: a new point of view
Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
The trajectories' prediction of floating objects above the sea surface represents an important task in search and rescue (SAR) operations. In this paper we show how it is possible to estimate the most probable search area by means of a stochastic model, schematizing the shape of the object appropriately and evaluating the forces acting on it. The LEEWAY model,a Monte Carlo-based ensemble trajectory model, has been used; here, both statistical law to calculate the leeway and an almost deterministic law inspired by the boundary layer theory have been considered. The model is nested within the subregional hydrodynamic model TSCRM (Tyrrhenian Sicily Channel Regional Model) developed in the framework of PON-TESSA (Programma Operativo Nazionale; National Operative Program – TEchnology for the Situational Sea Awareness) project. The main objective of the work is to validate a new approach of leeway calculation that relies on a real person in water (PIW) event, which occurred in t...
Marine GPS Search and Rescue System
When a person falls off of a large ship, it takes several minutes to assemble a rescue team, during which the person may be lost forever. To maximize the likelihood of rescue, a GPS-based rescue system was designed that could be automatically deployed. This system includes a small, battery-powered victim locating unit, designed to be installed on lifejackets; a rescue vehicle, which autonomously navigates to the victim using GPS; and a mothership host system, which provides navigation vectors to steer the rescue vehicle to the victim and back to the mothership successfully.