In 2019, I visited KVH’s headquarters in Middletown, Rhode Island, and was amazed by the network operations center. KVH manufactures cellular, Wi-Fi and satellite-communications equipment, and it manages and monitors a proprietary end-to-end network. Standing there, looking at the screens and maps, I could see every KVH-equipped vessel in the world, plus the operational status and performance metrics for each yacht’s KVH antennas.

Now, five years on, KVH is expanding its KVH One Hybrid Network by adding Eutelsat OneWeb’s constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites, giving yacht owners even more choices for how they want their systems to perform.

Satellite-communications systems have long leveraged geosynchronous (GEO) satellites that orbit around 26,200 miles above equatorial brine. These systems work fine, but they require a significant amount of power to bridge data across all those miles. The commute physically takes time, which is why satcom providers recently have been launching small low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites that orbit at elevations of 340 to 745 miles. They reduce power requirements and latency, and provide more satellites so that if a connection is lost, the equipment just finds the next passing LEO.

OneWeb isn’t the only LEO constellation aloft, but it’s the only one, as of this writing, with a hybrid solution involving GEO and LEO satellites. It also employs third-party antennas and guarantees speed, bandwidth and white-glove service.

Eutelsat OneWeb’s journey to low-Earth orbit began in 2012, when the company was formed with the goal of providing fast, low-cost connectivity to otherwise dark areas. In 2016, the London-based company partnered with Airbus to build satellites, and OneWeb’s first tranche of six LEOs attained orbit in February 2019.

The pandemic then stymied the company’s fundraising efforts. It declared bankruptcy in March 2020, but received support from the British government and Indian telecommunications giant Bharti Enterprises. In September 2023, the Paris-based GEO satcom provider Eutelsat merged with OneWeb. Bharti Enterprises, the British government and SoftBank remained significant stakeholders.

Eutelsat OneWeb’s network became operational in 2023, and it has 634 first-generation LEOs in polar orbit. Of these, 588 are active, and the remaining satellites are spares. Each OneWeb LEO operates in one of 12 synchronized orbital planes at an elevation of 745 miles above the equator.

“We’ve got coverage 35 degrees north, including the North and South Americas, and we recently had our coverage launched in Australia,” says Celeste Endrino-Cowley, Eutelsat OneWeb’s director for maritime and energy. “By the end of Q1 2024, we will also have live countries in Asia-Pacific. The remaining regions of the world will also be connected as soon as we complete the rollout of our ground stations and market access.”

Eutelsat OneWeb will offer a range of speeds. The basic option includes downlink and uplink speeds of 20-by-4 megabits per second, while the intermediate option yields speeds of 100-by-20 Mbps. High-end service delivers connectivity of 200-by-40 Mbps. By comparison, KVH’s GEO-based plans have downlink and uplink speeds ranging from 6-by-2 Mbps to 20-by-3 Mbps.

OneWeb also has maximum information rates (read: maximum data throughput) and committed information rates (read: guaranteed speeds). These prevent a tragedy of the data commons if, say, a cruise ship arrives at your anchorage.

As for latency, Endrino-Cowley says that data takes 70 milliseconds to make the one-way commute to or from a OneWeb LEO. By comparison, data typically spends 500 to 700 milliseconds traveling to or from a GEO.

Eutelsat also owns 35 GEOs, which it has integrated with its LEO fleet. Once Eutelsat OneWeb’s ground stations are complete, this integration will mean global, multiorbit, multifrequency coverage, and will allow Eutelsat OneWeb to move data along the most efficient routes. For example, bandwidth-intensive communications can be sent via GEOs, which offer higher throughput levels, while lower-bandwidth communications can travel via LEOs. This setup also opens the door to enabling higher- and lower-speed channels, such as for owners and crew.

Rather than building its own terminals, Eutelsat OneWeb partnered with terminal manufacturers Kymeta and Intellian, which build flat-panel antennas. Eutelsat OneWeb is also looking at antenna solutions through manufacturers that will be able to communicate with both GEO and LEO services. It also partners with companies such as KVH in the United States that resell antennas and airtime, and provide white-glove customer support.

“KVH One is our umbrella name for our multiple-orbit, multiple-channel network,” says Chris Watson, KVH’s vice president of marketing and communications. “The backbone of that has always been our [GEO] network, and then we brought in 5G, and we brought in Wi-Fi, and now we brought in Starlink, and now we’re bringing in OneWeb.”

KVH’s goal, he says, is for different communication channels to create a unified and stress-free user experience. Various costs will be involved. Starlink’s high-performance flat-panel antenna, for instance, fetches roughly half the expected retail price of Intellian’s yet-to-be-released OneWeb-ready flat panel.

“We’re going to be coming to market with OneWeb terminals and airtime pricing that will be competitive in the LEO space,” Watson says. “It’s going to be: What flavor do you like best? The functionality, the capability and the speeds are going to be very comparable.”

Watson also notes that Amazon and Telesat are building LEO networks: “It’s going to become a very robust ecosystem for LEO services in the next couple of years.”

Overall, the future looks bright for low-cost, high-speed LEO communications, especially when each network can serve as a spoke in the greater KVH One communications ecosystem. Based on what I saw during my visit to Rhode Island, KVH’s network can solve connectivity problems before boaters notice them. For yachtsmen seeking smooth data communications, few gloves are whiter than invisible ones.

Have It All

LEO networks are fast, but each has pros and cons. Modest costs mean that yacht owners can spec OneWeb and Starlink panels. For KVH One customers, a network’s bundled Wi-Fi, cellular and GEO-based satcom become a unified option.

Intellian is building OneWeb-ready parabolic antennas. Some of these antennas will be able to communicate with GEO and LEO satellites, while others will require discrete hardware for hybrid-constellation connectivity.

The post KVH Expands Its Hybrid Network with OneWeb’s LEO Satellites appeared first on Yachting.

KVH is adding an airtime plan and services in response to boaters’ demand for Starlink—which is now the fastest-growing service in KVH’s company history.

The company, founded in 1982, says it has activated more than 1,000 Starlink terminals since the start of 2024 alone. The new airtime plan and services are intended to make this maritime connectivity option more flexible for leisure boats and commercial vessels alike. 

“Starlink is an exciting part of our multi-orbit, multi-channel portfolio, one that offers outstanding communications to commercial crews and leisure boaters worldwide,” Brent C. Bruun, KVH’s chief executive officer, stated in a press release. “We’re thrilled to make Starlink available with expanded data plans and valuable supporting services, such as VoIP calling, global VSAT companion service, KVH’s advanced CommBox Edge Communications Gateway, and our premier 24/7/365 live airtime and technical support.”

The new KVH monthly data plans are structured in 100 GB, 300 GB, 600 GB and 2,500 GB packages. They expand the choices that boaters and fleet operators have to match the vessel and crew needs with the boat owner’s budget.

These plans are in addition to existing Starlink Mobile Priority Plans (50 GB, 1 TB, 5 TB, 10 TB, and 15 TB) that KVH also supports. 

At the same time, KVH is also offering voice calling via Starlink with its global VoIP service, which can outfit any Starlink-equipped vessel with two voice lines plus as many as 10 virtual local numbers. This type of technology means that calls to the vessel avoid long-distance charges.

“Owners of leisure yachts and commercial operators appreciate the breadth and quality of our integrated solutions and support,” Bruun added. “The result is the fastest growth of any connectivity service in our history, with more than 1,000 new Starlink terminal activations for new and existing customers since the start of the year.”

What other products does KVH offer? The company has TracNet, TracPhone and TracVision product lines, along with the KVH One OpenNet Program for non-KVH antennas, AgilePlans Connectivity as a Service, and the KVH Link crew wellbeing content service.

Where to learn more about Starlink: The company, which is a separate entity from KVH, has multiple plans that are designated for marine use. They start at $150 a month and are intended for regional as well as ocean cruising. Billing is one month at a time, so occasional cruisers don’t have to lock in for a whole year.

The post KVH Expands Starlink Maritime Options appeared first on Yachting.

On September 7, 2018, the 170-foot steel-hull Ice Angel was cruising the waters of Prince Christian Sound off Greenland’s southern coast. Its speed was 14.5 knots when it struck an uncharted underwater rock. The yacht’s four guests and 15 crew were safe, but the yacht sustained significant damage, leaking oil into the pristine waters.

If the available hydrographic information—Greenland Chart 1103—had detailed this feature, the accident likely never would have happened. But believe it or not, Chart 1103 was made in 1927. It is considered to be of “reconnaissance nature,” meaning that its white areas—those without detailed soundings—cannot be trusted for safe passage.

Unfortunately, Chart 1103 isn’t unique. Humanity has piloted unmanned vehicles on Mars, but we’ve only mapped about a quarter of the world’s seafloor. The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project, with help from international partners, aims to change this via community-generated bathymetric data. The partners range from government agencies (including official hydrographic offices) to nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations, and universities. They also include private companies such as FarSounder, the Rhode Island-based manufacturer of 3D forward-looking sonar.

Seabed 2030 was founded in 2017 as a collaboration between The Nippon Foundation, a Tokyo-based international nonprofit organization, and GEBCO (that’s General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans), a joint program of the International Hydrographic Organization and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

Back then, just 6 percent of the world’s oceans had been mapped to what Seabed 2030 terms “adequate” resolution. Seven years on, this metric approaches 25 percent.

“The primary mission is to deliver the first global map of the entire seafloor,” says Jamie McMichael-Phillips, Seabed 2030’s project director. He says that in some cases, this new data is replacing soundings that were collected using lead lines and sextants. “Without accurate maps of the global seabed, a full understanding of the ocean’s physical, biogeochemical and geological parameters is impossible to achieve.”

Seabed 2030’s 3D gridded bathymetric maps will help to further scientific understanding of complex natural processes, including ocean circulation and sediment transportation. The maps and data will also enable better weather forecasts, and more accurate climate models and tsunami warnings.

“Tsunami height is strongly determined by the shape of the seafloor in the run-up to landfall,” McMichael-Phillips says.

Seabed 2030’s map also promises to help businesses in areas such as natural-resources management (say, fisheries) and transoceanic communications and pipelines.

“Seabed 2030 receives generous donations of data from a growing global community of seafarers, nation-states, industry, academic researchers, philanthropic explorers and volunteers,” McMichael-Phillips says. He adds that while most bathymetric data is derived from sonar logs, Seabed 2030 accepts data collected via aircraft, unmanned vessels and satellites.

Anyone can contribute data, but Seabed 2030 maintains a group of partners—including FarSounder—that share a higher level of trust. Matthew Zimmerman, FarSounder’s CEO, says the company has been contributing bathymetric data to the International Hydrographic Organization since 2018 and became a Seabed 2030 partner last fall.

“I’m not a scientist. I’m an engineer,” he says. “I really like being able to enable science with the tools that my team and I develop.”

While any echo sounder can measure distance, not all information is created equally, he adds: “The sensor isn’t the problem, but the metadata is. It’s really hard to make charting decisions based on poor metadata.”

FarSounder documents the exact locations to within a few centimeters of a forward-looking sonar transducer, a third-party echo-sounder transducer, and GPS antenna(s) of every vessel where FarSounder equipment is installed.

“The metadata quality of our contributions is far superior to most crowdsourced contributions,” Zimmerman says.

In addition to becoming a Seabed 2030 partner, FarSounder recently won a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. FarSounder is using these funds to create a cloud-sharing service for sharing anonymous bathymetric data (read: depth at a location in time) from participating FarSounder customers with Seabed 2030. If the data meets the project’s technical requirements and needs, Seabed 2030 can stitch it into the GEBCO world map.

Notably, Seabed 2030’s definition of “adequate” bathymetric resolution hinges on water depth. For depths down to 4,921 feet, Seabed 2030 aims for “100-meter resolution,” meaning at least one sounding in an area that measures 328-by-328 feet. For depths from 4,921 feet to 9,843 feet, this will be 200-meter resolution; for the nearly 73 percent of the seafloor that measures between 9,843 and 18,865 feet down, resolution requirements dip to 400-meter resolution. And for the deepest soundings—say, the 2.7 percent of the seafloor between 18,865 and 36,090 feet—the metric drops to 800-meter resolution.

It’s also important to understand that Seabed 2030 is creating a macro-level seafloor map, not cartography.

“One-hundred-meter resolution isn’t that helpful from a navigational point of view,” Zimmerman says. “It’s certainly helpful for understanding our world from a global science point of view, but it’s not navigation-quality information.”

FarSounder’s systems provide real-time sonar imagery forward of a vessel’s bow. They also build and store a high-resolution bathymetry map of everywhere the vessel has sailed. This local history map resides on the vessel’s FarSounder bridge computer, but it can be shared anonymously with the FarSounder community via the company’s optional fleet-sharing program whenever connectivity exists.

This is where things get interesting for participating FarSounder customers who opt in. “We needed to find a way to motivate our users to contribute, as well as being able to pass this on to the [Seabed 2030] community,” Zimmerman says. The solution was to create two classes of data for customers who opt into the company’s fleet-sharing program.

“Our customers get the full-resolution data as part of the service, but we’re contributing a slightly lower-resolution data [to Seabed 2030],” Zimmerman says. “The high-res maps from the FarSounder sonar, the highest resolution, that’s staying just with the FarSounder customers who are part of this fleet-sharing service.”

Given that FarSounder customers often buy this equipment to ply seldom-seen waters, participation confers membership into a kind of sonic explorers club. “We have pretty good coverage in areas that don’t have good chart data,” Zimmerman says. “We really want to encourage our customers to contribute so that they can also reap the benefit.”

FarSounder might someday monetize this data, but this isn’t the current model. “FarSounder is in the business of selling sonars,” Zimmerman says. “We’re in a unique position where we can participate, we can make contributions, and we don’t need to worry about supporting our company financially through the data transactions because we do that through our hardware sales.”

The net result is a win-win-win: Seabed 2030 receives high-quality data from a trusted partner, the general public and scientific community benefit from the free and downloadable GEBCO world map, and participating FarSounder customers get higher-resolution data.

Still, scale and time emerge as question marks.

“Even with everybody doing all of the mapping they possibly could, we’re not going to meet the Seabed 2030 goals of mapping the world’s oceans, certainly not by 2030, likely not even in the next 70 years,” Zimmerman says.

Seabed 2030’s team acknowledges this, but with a caveat: “A combination of a large fleet of conventionally crewed vessels and robot boats in larger numbers would be a game-changer,” McMichael-Phillips says.

In the meantime, Seabed 2030 is already providing the world with higher-resolution, large-scale seafloor bathymetric data than has ever existed. As for Chart 1103, Seabed 2030 will eventually help fill in the white areas. Cruisers everywhere are encouraged to consider joining FarSounder’s participating community.

Seafloor Scans

FarSounder’s Expedition Sourced Ocean Data Collection Program provides external USB drives that collect raw sonar data. This project requires significant back-end processing work for FarSounder. It’s run on an invitation-only basis, based on sailing itineraries. This high-quality data contributes to FarSounder’s fleet-sharing program.

The post Mapping The World’s Oceans appeared first on Yachting.

For years, I eagerly anticipated Apple’s fall event and news of the latest iPhone release. Back then, my purchasing latency was limited to locating the website’s “buy” button, as my incumbent phone was often struggling to keep pace with new apps and software updates. Then, starting around 2015 (the iPhone 6S), I was able to start squeezing extra years out of my phones. This trend accelerated, and as of today, I still rely on my iPhone 11 Pro from 2019. To be fair, I always buy the top-end model with maximum storage, but four and a half years on, I haven’t crashed (at least not hard) into this phone’s silicone ceiling.

Multifunction displays perform different tasks than smartphones, but most marine-electronics manufacturers build MFDs with off-the-shelf componentry and, sometimes, software from the mobile-device market. This sourcing gives manufacturers options for high-resolution touchscreen displays, processors, connectivity and operating-system architecture, and it means that today’s MFDs can have longer working lives.

How we got here, however, requires a small rewind. After all, MFDs circa 2010 were different animals than today’s big, powerful displays.

“Back then, most displays were 4 to 7 inches,” says Dave Dunn, Garmin’s senior director of marine and RV sales. “A big display was 9 to 10 inches, and a 12-inch display was enormous.”

These MFDs were controlled via tactile buttons and knobs, or early touchscreen or hybrid-touch interfaces. They only tackled marine-facing applications such as chart-plotting.

Today’s MFDs excel at traditional marine tasks, but they also boast bigger glass, full video integration, touchscreen interfaces, high-speed data networks, and four- or six-core processors, opening the door to expanded job descriptions.

“Processing power has indeed increased over time, bringing with it the ability to drive higher-resolution screens,” says Steve Thomas, Simrad’s product director for digital systems. “[This] also lends itself to better integration by providing the responsiveness consumers expect.”

It also enables MFDs to perform nontraditional tasks, including streaming video from daylight and thermal-imaging cameras, tackling onboard security, controlling digital switching and, sometimes, providing entertainment. Today’s flagship MFDs also sport larger high-resolution displays, multisignal connectivity (with ANT, Bluetooth, Ethernet and Wi-Fi), embedded sonar modules, GPS or GNSS receivers, data backbones, and NMEA 2000 and HTML5 compatibility.

“NMEA 2000 protocol provides the basis of communication and is the linchpin connecting everything together for the MFD to display and control,” says Eric Kunz, Furuno’s senior product manager. Kunz adds that HTML5 compatibility allows MFDs to display and control third-party equipment via web-browser windows, sans any heavy lifting from the MFD.

Technology moves in step changes, and MFDs, brand depending, have experienced two major evolutions since 2010.

“The first was the transition from a completely closed-software architecture to something open source,” says Jim McGowan, Raymarine’s Americas marketing manager, referring to the company’s shift from a walled-garden operating system to Linux and then Android.

Others, including Simrad and Furuno, took similar steps. Garmin remains a holdout.

“We use Android, but not for marine,” Dunn says. “Will we eventually go to Android? Maybe.”

The second evolution involved hardware, with all MFD manufacturers now using mobile-device componentry.

“Suddenly, the requirements for shock resistance, heat resistance, water resistance, bright visibility and fast processing became available on a wide scale,” McGowan says. “Instead of us having to source expensive industrial or semicustom hardware that was proven but old, suddenly our system architects had multiple options to choose from that were all state of the art.”

Sourcing components became easier, yielding better MFDs, but it placed a higher premium on software. Case in point: Raymarine has released more than 30 updates, including new features, for its 2017-era Axiom MFDs.

Likewise, there’s the importance of supporting hardware as it ages. “We don’t like to leave customers behind,” Dunn says, noting that Garmin supports products for five years after they’re discontinued.

This opens the door to the fine art of good enough. Given that modern MFDs are robust, the same display—like my iPhone—can last for years, provided that its sensor network remains static. While this works for buy-and-hold customers, new sensors can dangle carrots.

For example, Furuno and Garmin unveiled Doppler-enabled radars in 2016. While older MFDs could often display radar imagery from these sensors, some customers had to refit their displays to access the best features. One can imagine automation and AI presenting similar incentives.

“AI will combine multiple facets of different sensors to create a more sophisticated and enhanced navigation experience,” Kunz says. “Look for MFDs to take a larger and larger part in overall vessel control and automation.”

Avikus, for instance, is developing its NeuBoat autonomous navigation system with Raymarine. As for Garmin, Dunn says: “There’s nothing coming in the near future, but there’s some cool stuff coming with lidar and cameras.” He’s referring to the light-detection and ranging sensors that help enable automotive driver-assist features and autonomous driving.

Future hardware and capabilities aside, all experts agree on the importance of regularly updating a vessel’s MFD to keep the operating system current and to access the latest software features. While updates are free, all four companies have adopted subscription models for cartography.

“In some ways, the marine-electronics business model is changing in the same way it is happening in the consumer-electronics industry,” Kunz says. “This will most likely lead to more of a subscription-based model for certain aspects of the market.”

While subscription models make sense for a dynamic media like cartography, it’s harder to envision this business practice extending throughout the sensor ecosystem.

“We don’t want to get to the point where people have to pay for software updates,” Dunn says, pointing to BMW’s belly-flopped attempt to charge customers fees to use their existing heated steering wheels.

New hardware, however, is a different story. “More than anything, we’re a sensor company,” McGowan says of Raymarine. “We keep offering new and improved sensors.”

Given the adoption rates of Doppler-enabled radar, there’s little question that the recreational marine market stands ready to embrace step-change sensors, so long as they come bundled with newfound capabilities—say, auto-docking or autonomous navigation.

As for my ancient iPhone, I’m again counting the days until Apple’s fall event. I just hope my next iPhone will last as long as today’s flagship MFDs.  

UI Options

Recent years have seen most manufacturers adopt touchscreen-only user interfaces for their flagship multifunction displays. This technology creates user-friendly interfaces in most conditions, but some users prefer tactile buttons when the weather sours. All manufacturers build optional external keypads or hard-button remote controls.

The post Future-Proofing Multifunction Displays appeared first on Yachting.

Garmin isn’t trying to be Apple. Dave Dunn, senior director of marine and RV sales, is clear about that: “We’re trying to be the watch that you can beat up and use every day. Our customers are adventurous.”

Still, the Garmin team kept hearing customers talk about how much easier they found it to look at an Apple Watch. “Historically, our watches had a display that was not crisp, not bright,” Dunn says. “Our customers said they liked the Apple Watch display better.”

Hence the upgraded display on the recently unveiled Garmin quatix 7 Pro. Its 1.3-inch AMOLED display is brighter and crisper than the displays on previous models, with a scratch-resistant sapphire lens so boaters don’t have to worry about banging it up.

Also new is a flashlight that was on a prior quatix model, which is now standard on most models.

“Any of our users will tell you it’s our No. 1 feature,” Dunn says. “It sounds ridiculous until you see how bright it is. If you’re walking the dog at night or going to the restroom while you’re sleeping, it comes in handy. It’s a hands-free light.”

Two new apps are also loaded into this version of the quatix. The first is Trolling Motor Remote, which lets anglers control a compatible trolling motor. The second is Fish Forecast, which is intended to save anglers the effort of searching online for general information that can indicate better days to wet a line.

“Think about an almanac; it has moon phases, time of year, all of that. It gives you a prediction about the best times to fish,” Dunn says. “All of it is right there. You’re never guaranteed to catch fish, but it tells you when the better times might be.”

Garmin also updated apps that let the smartwatch act as a remote control for chart plotters, autopilots and Fusion stereos; notify boaters about anchor drag; and show integrated tide data.

“This is designed by boaters, for boaters,” Dunn says, adding that he personally enjoys controlling a boat’s stereo from his wrist. “If you’re on a sandbar at a party and you want to change the volume or the song, you can do that from your watch. I love that feature.”  

Boater-Friendly

The Garmin quatix 7 Pro is built to let users control their whole boating ecosystem from their wrist. This smartwatch can connect to compatible chart plotters, autopilots, Fusion stereos and trolling motors, all while it simultaneously tracks personal health information and serves as a hands-free flashlight. It also receives text messages and smart notifications.

Purchase your own here: Amazon, Garmin

The post Garmin Quatix Upgrade appeared first on Yachting.

If you love nautical yarns, David Grann’s The Wager is a must-read. The nonfiction work details the account of The Wager, a sixth-rate Royal Navy square-rigger that carried 28 guns and 120 sailors. The 123-footer was part of an eight-vessel armada that, in 1741, sailed west around Cape Horn in winter, pursuing plunder. The Wager got separated. In a navigational blunder, the vessel turned north before it banked enough west. It didn’t go well.

Anyone interested in learning about how the great east-west navigation problem was finally solved should read Dava Sobel’s Longitude. Anyone interested in ensuring their own navigational accuracy, however, should cruise with a dedicated Global Navigation Satellite System sensor.

Satellite-based navigation began evolving in the 1960s. The US-built Global Positioning System—the first of its kind—went live in 1993. Today, the international Global Navigation Satellite System consists of four global satellite constellations (including GPS), plus two regional ones. While GPS continues to provide world-class service, GNSS receivers can capture this information along with data from other satellites. The best part? You probably already own several.

Navigational satellites work by broadcasting information about their identification, position, orbit and health status, along with a hyper-accurate time stamp. Receivers derive their position by triangulating with at least three satellites, with stronger (or more numerous) signals often equating to higher accuracy. Precision matters. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, if a clock aboard a GPS satellite is off by one-thousandth of a second, then the corresponding measurement error would be 1,616 nautical miles.

While there are differences between the various constellations, each system employs three distinct segments: control, user and space.

The control segment consists of one or more master land-based control stations and a global network of supporting stations. These stations monitor each satellite’s reported positions and compare reports with predictive models. If needed, operators can alter a satellite’s orbit to ensure baseline accuracy or avoid debris.

The user segment refers to any receivers listening for signals, while the space segment refers to orbiting assets.

Each of the GNSS’ four main navigation constellations contain different numbers of satellites that operate at different elevations and across different orbital planes. The US-built GPS constellation involves 31 satellites that operate at an elevation of 10,900 nautical miles above sea level. GPS satellites orbit on six different planes, and they maintain a 55-degree orbital inclination (relative to the equator).

Russia’s GLONASS constellation, which has been active since 1995, involves 24 satellites that operate at 10,315 nautical miles and orbit on three planes at 64.8 degrees of orbital inclination. China’s BeiDou constellation, which went live in 2011, consists of 35 satellites. Of these, eight are either geosynchronous or inclined geosynchronous satellites that operate at 19,325 nautical miles, while the other 27 operate at 11,625 nautical miles. BeiDou satellites orbit the planet on six planes, and they maintain an orbital inclination of 55.5 degrees.

Finally, the European Union’s Galileo constellation, which became operational in 2018, will (when complete) consist of 30 satellites that operate at 12,540 nautical miles. Galileo satellites orbit across three planes, and they maintain a 56-degree orbital inclination.

GNSS receivers are generally accurate from 6.5 feet to 13 feet globally; however, some countries use a satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) that improves accuracy by broadcasting correction information. In the United States, this is called the wide-area augmentation system (WAAS). In early 2023, the European Union’s Galileo constellation began delivering free high-accuracy service information that’s precise to roughly 8 inches.

Celestial navigation, this is not.

Satellite-navigation receivers have existed in different forms for years. Depending on the manufacturer and design, these receivers (and their antennas) can be embedded into multifunction displays, or incorporated into abovedecks sensors that share satellite-navigation data with other networked equipment (or both).

Alternatively, yacht owners can sometimes buy an abovedecks listen-only antenna, which shares its improved signal strength and reception with a belowdecks GNSS-enabled multifunction display.

Some satellite-navigation receivers favor GPS signals, while others can also listen to data from some of the other GNSS constellations. Full GNSS receivers can access the four main constellations, plus the regional Japanese and Indian constellations. These receivers sometimes include nine-axis compasses or attitude-heading reference systems. These sensors, which don’t add much cost, provide accurate heading information in addition to GPS and GNSS data.

Finally, satellite compasses are the best option for serious navigation. Depending on their design, these instruments employ multiple GNSS receivers, which provide heading information that isn’t contingent on Earth’s magnetic field (read: high-latitude cruising). Eric Kunz, Furuno’s senior product manager, says the company’s SCX20/21 satellite compasses use four GNSS receivers, allowing them to achieve 1-degree heading accuracy.

While some people say GPS alone is plenty robust for their needs, many marine-electronics manufacturers have been quick to embrace GNSS. “With more satellites available to track and pull into calculations, the GNSS-enabled receivers offer enhanced accuracy,” says Jim McGowan, Raymarine’s Americas marketing manager.

He’s not alone in this assessment. “A GNSS antenna provides more redundancy and higher accuracy than GPS-only receivers,” says Dave Dunn, Garmin’s senior director of marine and RV sales. “Some parts of the world may have better coverage at certain times of day with some constellations than others.”

McGowan says GNSS is especially useful for high-latitude navigators because these receivers can track GLONASS satellites: “Those satellites are in a higher orbit inclination than GPS satellites, which allows the GNSS receiver to get a better tracking angle and duration on those satellites.”

Leigh Armstrong, Simrad’s product manager of digital systems, agrees: “This allows for better maintenance of accuracy in areas with less satellite coverage.”

The inverse, of course, is that BeiDou, Galileo and GPS satellites likely provide better fixes closer to the equator.

While GNSS data is critical for navigation, it can also help bolster the accuracy of other networked devices. Here, Dunn points to automatic identification system (AIS) position and speed data, autopilot performance, and radar target-tracking features.

Looking ahead, autonomous docking systems and vessels need precise position, speed and other navigational information to negotiate harbors, follow autopilot-driven courses, and safely dock. It’s expected that GNSS (with SBAS) will fill this niche.

The Wager’s crew experienced unspeakable horrors, but GNSS receivers and satellite compasses likely mean none of today’s boaters will have to dodge scurvy.

Belts and Suspenders

While the ancient mariner would have paid handsomely for a chronometer, contemporary smartwatches carry GNSS sensors. Most smartphones have GNSS receivers, as do some handheld VHF radios. These are all important backups should a vessel experience low voltage or power loss. 

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Marine technology companies and brands continue to advance in the area of systems integration, combining features and functionalities in ways that are intended to make boating easier and safer. In just the past few weeks, Raymarine and Garmin—two of the biggest players in the marine electronics space—announced new developments around this type of integration.

Raymarine teamed up with ePropulsion to let boaters display their electric-motor engine data directly on Raymarine Axiom displays, without the need for additional gateways or add-on interface boxes. This blending of systems was accomplished by combining NMEA 2000 standards for electric engines with Raymarine’s LightHouse 4.6 operating system that supports electric motor PGN messages.

The Axiom engine dashboard now allows boaters to see the ePropulsion motor’s battery level, speed, gear and estimated range. A dynamic range ring overlays on the chartplotter display, helping boaters to visualize current cruising range and optimize energy consumption. 

“It has been incredible working alongside one of the most innovative electric engine manufacturers to bring industry-first functionality to a previously under-represented class of boater,” Grégoire Outters, general manager at Raymarine, stated in a press release. “We’re confident that those who’ve adopted electric propulsion will appreciate the forward thinking of ePropulsion and Raymarine.”

Meanwhile, Garmin used its April 2024 software release to add support for the FLIR Maritime Thermal Monitoring System.

Supported features now include live display of the video feed from the FLIR camera system; audible alarms and visual alerts on the Garmin chartplotter; thermal, visible and MSX thermal/visible blending; thermal color palette selection; and custom camera naming.

The FLIR Maritime Thermal Monitoring System can monitor machinery and equipment, identifying temperature anomalies in equipment such as gas and diesel engines, generators, bearings and electrical panels. The system can give boaters an early warning about problems that can lead to equipment failure.

FLIR’s system can be programmed to provide alerts based on high-, low- or delta-temperature factors.

“Garmin’s integration with this system allows users to deploy this solution seamlessly, without needing a separate display taking up valuable helm station real estate,” said Outters, who also serves as general manager at Teledyne FLIR Maritime. “The ease of installation and use, combined with the customizability of the system allows users to tailor it to their specific needs or mission.”

Where to learn more about Raymarine and ePropulsion: go to raymarine.com or epropulsion.com

Where to learn more about Garmin and FLIR: visit garmin.com and flir.com

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In 2020, the BSB Group released Oscar, a machine vision collision-avoidance system. Oscar used cameras to detect objects, and it would send real-time alerts to avoid collisions.

The company, now called Sea.AI, has since partnered with Pixel sur Mer, a French data-management and vessel-control company, and with ENSTA Bretagne, a French university with expertise in robotic engineering and autonomous navigation. Together, the trio is innovating Exos 2024, an AI and multisensor system for detecting, identifying and autonomously dodging obstacles.

These sensors include automatic identification system receivers, global-positioning system receivers, radar and cameras. Exos 2024 fuses information from all the networked sensors, allowing AI to make more-informed decisions than an optical-only solution.

Gaetan Gouerou, Sea.AI’s co-founder, says one of Exos 2024’s main challenges is determining when the system should intervene. “The autopilot will only take over in the event of a proven dangerous situation,” he says. “The acquisition of reliable information required for such action is a challenge.”

Gouerou says the group’s collective experiences will allow them to build a solution faster than any of the three could develop the technology alone. The plan is to make Exos 2024 available to singlehanded sailors competing in the 2024 Vendee Globe around-the-world race.

Database Building

In 2020, Sea.AI commanded a million annotated maritime objects in its database. It’s now more than 9 million objects. Exos 2024’s AI examines real-time imagery captured by its cameras using information gleaned from its database to detect and identify nonwater objects. Sea.AI plans to leverage the gains it makes with the Exos 2024 project to improve Sentry, a collision-avoidance system for power cruising.   

Take the next step: sea.ai

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In 2018, I watched my buddy Allan engage the Mad Max autopilot mode on his Tesla Model S, cuing the car to switch lanes aggressively on Interstate 95. While the experience as a human was unnerving, the car leveraged cameras, sensors and artificial intelligence to maneuver safely.

Months later, I rode on a Boston Whaler 330 Outrage fitted with Mercury Marine’s Advanced Pilot Assist and Raymarine’s DockSense systems. As we approached the boat’s slip, the preproduction system used cameras, AI and the outboard engines to maintain a 3-foot safety buffer.

At the 2022 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, I saw these ideas meld in Avikus’ prototype NeuBoat autonomous operations system. The boat, with a human-in-the-loop operator, navigated itself out of its slip, up a river and around a lake before reversing course and docking itself.

Ready or not, autonomous technology is coming. This is likely good news for novice boaters—and for boaters who hate docking—because some of the marine industry’s smartest minds have been combining sensors and AI to smooth out boating’s rough corners. One example is NeuBoat (neuron plus boat), which Avikus is developing in partnership with Raymarine.

While experts say the sensors and software already exist to enable fully autonomous docking and navigation, Avikus and Raymarine foresee a road map to autonomy that earns trust with boaters while buying time for engine manufacturers to integrate the technology, and for agencies and organizations to create regulations.

“We’re intentionally paralleling the automotive market,” says Jamie Cox, Raymarine’s senior global product manager. “But I think we will beat automotive.”

Others agree. Sangwon Shin, Avikus’ director of strategic planning and business development, says: “In our view, the boating environment is less complicated than the car environment. So, we expect a little bit faster adoption rate.”

For boaters who are ready to start now, Avikus and Raymarine are releasing NeuBoat Dock this year. The assisted-docking system includes at least six self-calibrating, 360-degree cameras; a Raymarine multifunction display; an Avikus object-recognition unit; camera control boxes; and Avikus’ AI to provide bird’s-eye views and distance guides. (Garmin’s Surround View camera system provides similar capabilities.)

NeuBoat Dock is a level-one autonomous navigation system, which means it serves as a virtual assistant to human operators who remain in control. Level-two systems provide partial driving automation but still require a human operator. Level-three systems have conditional driving automation, requiring some human oversight, while level four has zero expectations of driver involvement. Level five is full driving automation.

Avikus, which is a spin-off of HD Hyundai, began developing NeuBoat in 2019. The resulting level-three-plus black-box prototype, which I got aboard in 2022, used the global navigation satellite system and vector cartography to establish position. The local device didn’t require internet connectivity. Instead, it employed daylight cameras and lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors to detect objects, measure distances, and scan and map berths. It also used Avikus’ AI to detect and classify nearby objects and vessels, assist with route planning, and suggest navigable courses.

This latter information was presented as screen views showing vector cartography with recommended courses, head-up displays and live camera views with augmented-reality data tags.

While impressive, the prototype didn’t use radar or the automatic identification system, so its range of object detection was limited to lidar’s 400-foot-range capacity. This range worked at our 6-knot speed, giving us 39 seconds of reaction time, but it wouldn’t work at 25 knots, only allowing for nine seconds.

Enter Raymarine, which integrated its own radar technology with Avikus’ AI. This combination extended NeuBoat’s detection range from 400 feet to 1.5 nautical miles. Shin says Avikus plans to integrate radar, sonar and infrared cameras within five years.

While extra range is important for recreational users, it’s critical for letting Avikus develop autonomous systems on large ships. “We use the same technology and the same algorithms for commercial and recreational, but the hardware specs are different,” Shin says.

In addition to radar expertise, Raymarine has amassed experience using computer vision from its DockSense and ClearCruise AR products. The latter places augmented-reality tags atop a video feed. Computer vision is a branch of AI that lets computers recognize, categorize and identify objects and people in digital images or video feeds; as such, it is critical to autonomous operations.

Looking ahead, Shin says, commercial ships and recreational vessels will first use autonomous navigation with human-in-the-loop operators, followed by autonomous operations. This isn’t a hypothetical; in 2022, Avikus’ commercial version of NeuBoat autonomously guided an LNG tanker across an ocean with human-in-the-loop oversight.

“The technology is there today,” Cox says. “We need to make sure that people are ready to use the technology responsibly and that regulations are there.”

When asked what milestones need to be met for autonomous operations aboard recreational yachts, Cox and Shin made clear they aren’t talking about distant horizons. “None are 10 years out,” Cox says, adding that by mid-2024, Avikus and Raymarine expect to have achieved sensor fusion, where the system can combine data from the vessel’s AIS, cameras, GNSS, lidar and radar. “In two years, on the control side, boats will be docking and driving themselves.”

Shin agrees: “In five years, we’re expecting lots of the boating community to accept the possibility of autonomous navigation or partial assistance on their boat.”

Before this can happen, however, Cox and Shin point to two technical complexities: networking with autopilots and engines. As with radars, Raymarine has decades of experience manufacturing autopilots, so engine interfaces could prove to be the sticky wicket. “Engine manufacturers need to become more progressive,” Shin says. “They are the powerful guys.” Cox says the goal is to integrate NeuBoat with every major engine manufacturer.

Cox and Shin also point to a need for regulations to govern autonomous vessels. This is already happening; in 2022, the American Bureau of Shipping published a white paper that detailed 10 points—from maintaining propulsion to maintaining communications—intended to create a structure for autonomous-vessel design and operations. The US Coast Guard also published guidelines on testing remote- and autonomously controlled vessels.

Convincing experienced boaters that autonomous technology is the path forward could be a hard sell for some, but this is where Avikus and Raymarine plan to parallel the automotive world. Most contemporary cars have adaptive cruise control, making these types of assistance features feel familiar. Many boaters also own cars with an autopilot feature.

But driving to work is different than taking the boat out for a spin. Here, Cox says NeuBoat isn’t going to take away boating’s joys. Instead, the idea is to reduce stress. For example, Cox describes allowing the boat to navigate autonomously to the fishing grounds or home from a cruise.

Cox also says autopilots have served boaters for decades, and that autonomous navigation is an extension of this capability, combined with the ability to avoid collisions autonomously.

For newer boaters, autonomous technology is an easier proposition. “I’m a new boater, and I get nervous a lot,” Shin says. “We target new boaters. We want more people to enjoy boating.”

Then there is boating’s greatest equalizer. “People don’t like docking,” Cox says. “We’re never going to stop you from driving your boat, but it might be nice, if you’re coming into a dock and are getting stressed out, to switch it on.”

The wait won’t be long, either. While Avikus is paralleling the automotive sector, Cox and Shin expect NeuBoat technology to navigate and dock recreational vessels sooner than cars. “People will be surprised with how quickly we will get to market,” Cox says.

Having experienced Tesla’s Mad Max mode and Avikus’ level-three-plus sea trials,

I can say that far less adrenaline is involved watching a demonstration boat dock itself than when I pawed for a nonexistent passenger-side brake pedal in my buddy Allan’s Tesla.

Better Optics

While NeuBoat Dock uses six 360-degree cameras, they only work for daytime operations. The obvious move is to add thermal-imaging cameras, and Raymarine’s parent company, Teledyne, owns FLIR. Thermal-imaging cameras would add cost, but Cox says these sophisticated optical sensors could be included aboard higher-end NeuBoat installations.

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November 29, 2014: Team Vestus Wind was racing from Cape Town, South Africa, to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates at speeds of 16 to 21 knots. The boat slammed into the Cargados Carajos Shoals, around 235 nautical miles northeast of Mauritius. The crew survived, but the multimillion-dollar race boat was destroyed.

Human error was to blame, but postmortem reports suggest that the scale of the boat’s chart displays was a contributing factor. The boat carried two multifunction displays and two laptops, but the 6.4-inch MFD screens couldn’t provide much resolution at scale.

Navigation aside, screen space wouldn’t have been an issue if the team had been racing with Garmin’s 9000 series GPSMap displays, which have up to 27 inches of high-resolution glass. Modern MFDs combine processing power, memory, data storage, touchscreen capabilities and network connectivity. Garmin’s GPSMap 9000 series adds bigger swaths of glass, better onscreen resolution and faster processors.

While these upgrades significantly enhance the user experience, the biggest innovation within Garmin’s first new flagship MFD in eight years is its four BlueNet network ports. This hardware combination, along with Garmin’s quarterly software updates, should mean significant amounts of future-proofing.

The GPSMap 9000 is available in 19- ($9,900), 22- ($11,400), 24- ($13,400) and 27-inch ($16,900) screens with in-plane switching for sunlight readability. The displays ship with tide tables and either Garmin’s basic worldwide base map or a US version that has built-in Garmin Navionics+ cartography for the United States, Canada and the Bahamas. The touchscreen-only displays can be flush- or flat-mounted, and they’re compatible with Garmin’s external hard-key remote controls.

“Despite having large screens—up to 24 inches—with the GPSMap 8400/8600 series, the requests kept coming in for larger,” says Dave Dunn, Garmin’s senior director of marine and RV sales. “4K screens have come down in cost since the 8400/8600 were developed, so we’re able to offer a 4K-resolution screen where the cost didn’t make sense in the previous generation.”

While eye-pleasing, this resolution isn’t just about aesthetics, Dunn adds: “With the content of the cartography that we’re getting today, when you add in the relief shading, you add in contour lines, you add in your tracks, your breadcrumbs—all that stuff starts to clutter. The higher resolution you have, it’s cleaner.” And you can still see all the details for navigation.

Dunn says that better screen resolution also helps anglers. Like Garmin’s GPSMap 8400/8600 series, the GPSMap 9000 displays are built to show underkeel targets and structure. Both generations of MFDs support traditional 50/200 kHz sonar, along with Garmin’s ClearVu, SideVu, Panoptix and Livescope systems, giving users the ability to acquire a massive amount of underkeel awareness.

“If you’re just looking for the bottom, it doesn’t help you,” Dunn says. “But if you’re fishing, it could be the difference of seeing several targets that are stacked up together, where otherwise it might just have been one big target because the pixel count wouldn’t allow you to draw those targets.”

That said, navigational awareness is also well-covered because GPSMap 9000 displays have Global Navigation Satellite System receivers. This allows the MFDs to acquire position fixes from four discrete navigation systems: GPS (United States), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (European Union) and Beidou (China). The built-in wide-area augmentation system allows for accuracy to 3.3 feet.

In addition to enhancing navigation, large-format 4K displays can moonlight as screens for streaming entertainment or watching stored content. GPSMap 9000 displays also have HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content protection) distribution, allowing users to play the same content simultaneously across all networked GPSMap 9000 screens.

Garmin further designed the GPSMap 9000 to serve as computational heavy-lifters. The processors have speeds seven times faster than those in the GPSMap 8400/8600 series. “We want these to be as future-proofed as possible, so there’s way more horsepower built into them than they actually need,” Dunn says. “That also helps with integration and everything that we’re pumping into these MFDs now.”

That includes Garmin’s BlueNet network, a superhighway that hustles data at 1 gigabit per second. By comparison, NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000 networks move data at 4.8 and 250 kilobits per second, respectively, and Garmin’s previous network moves data at 100 megabits per second. While 100 Mbps isn’t slow, BlueNet is 10 times faster.

The four BlueNet ports in each GPSMap 9000 display look ordinary, but they let users build data-intensive networks involving multiple displays, daylight and thermal-imaging cameras, radars, sonars and other instrumentation. The setup also reserves bandwidth for upcoming innovations, Dunn says: “When you think about BlueNet and what it opens up for the future, that’s really the key innovation here. It gives us a lot more opportunity to interact with more features and components on the boat than we ever have.”

Tea leaves are hard to read, but given that Garmin’s Surround View camera system already has some of the technologies for self-docking capabilities, it’s fair to hypothesize that some of the impetus for the GPSMap 9000’s powerful processors and BlueNet compatibility involves supporting higher levels of automated technology.

As for target audiences, given the sizes and costs involved, these MFDs are aimed at larger yachts. Dunn points to the owner of a 70-footer who purchased three 27-inch GPSMap 9000 MFDs, and installed two at his helm and one in his stateroom, plus smaller GPSMap 8600 MFDs on the flybridge and elsewhere.

At the same time, Dunn says, the owners of smaller boats, including center-consoles, have also been installing big-boat equipment. “Anything above about 30 feet is probably going to go to these 9000s,” he says, adding that another customer bought a 27-inch GPSMap 9000 MFD for his bay boat. “Instead of going with two screens, people are opting to go with one really large one.”

As for Team Vestus Wind, it’s hard to imagine the same scaling issues surfacing if they had been racing with 27 inches of 4K screen real estate supported by lightning-fast processors, GNSS receivers and 1 Gbps data networks. Careful navigation, of course, remains a different story.

Trickle-Down Tech

Big displays are visually pleasing, but not everyone has the physical space to accommodate a 19-inch screen, let alone 27 inches of glass. It’s easy to speculate that Garmin will build smaller GPSMap 9000 displays in the future. In the meantime, Garmin’s GPSMap 8600 series comes in 10, 12, 16 and 17 inches.

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