Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA)

Maritime Assets are soft Targets Terrorists & pirates are more and more targeting locations or facilities considered too ‘soft’. As was evident in such attacks as the USS Cole, M/ V. Limburg & the tragic attacks of 26/11 in Mumbai. It is clear that “soft” targets have included attacks on Merchant & Naval ships, Coastal Tourist hotspots & hotels, Bridges, commercial shipping, oil & Transport critical infrastructure. Perils of pirate attacks is increasing by the day. All these attacks have been carried out using small crafts & fishing vessels. Since these attacks, the importance of small craft/fishing vessel tracking has taken great importance & have highlighted the need for security on coastal borders. Terrorism today, is a worldwide Issue.

Situational Awareness for your coast?

Security is a key word today and being ”on-line” with all borders and water front is essential for the new world order. The tracking of small crafts have for several years already, been an aim of authorities worldwide. No cost eeffective fool proof solution has been found yet. A vessel or craft close to the coast is the immediate threat. Various technologies have been tried and apart from satellite tracking no other technology has succeeded. But then Satellite tracking is very expensive & position updates are inadequate for security. So is GSM which apart from being pricey is susceptible to network congestion and breakdowns. Inadequate reporting rates make tracking useless for security.

Why Class B is Not the Solution?

The most obvious step in tightening security is to have knowledge of the movements of all vessels along the coastline. Thus incorporating any tracking projects into the security agenda is important. For the IMO class vessels this is achieved with a Class A AIS. What about small boats, yachts, harbor crafts, towed barges, jet ski….. in general small crafts? Class B with CSTDMA is not suitable for various reasons. Most important being that high quality of class B targets will overload existing coast AIS networks. It should be kept in mind that all ships in vicinity would also see 1000’s of targets. With this magnitude of clutter it could become “hazard to navigation”. USCG cautions class B users are not seen by all.

vmsTRACK or vmsTRACK-PRO for MDA

vmsTRACK from Weatherdock  is the world’s 1st purpose built tracking solution for fishing vessels & other small crafts with or without power. This is a result of over 15man-years that have been spent on listening to fishermen needs as well as homeland security requirements. The end result is a product that is robust, designed by experienced engineers and made in Germany. vmsTRACK helps bring small boats, leisure crafts & fishing vessels into a national Maritime Domain Awareness network.

vmsTRACK is an award winning TDMA based VHF radio unit that can work on programmable marine band frequency. Due to the nature of TDMA technology it allows several users to share the same frequency channel by dividing the signal into different timeslots. vmsTRACK has a unique capability of transmitting a SOLAS “Panic” alert as AIS MSG 14 which can also be received by any one carrying a Class A or B receiver or transponder.