SOLAS Compliant Navigation Systems On Naval Vessels

D C Bradley, A Scicluna

BAE Systems Australia Defence Pty Ltd, Williamstown, VIC 3016, Australia

david.bradley4@baesystems.com, andrew.scicluna@baesystems.com

1) ABSTRACT

In addition to modern military naval vessels meeting all of their operational requirements,

the vessels are also being specified to meet commercial shipping registry classifications;

such as Lloyd’s Registry. Registration with a shipping registry requires vessels to be

compliant with commercial shipping standards. For navigation systems, commercial

classification means compliance with Safety Of Life At Sea (SOLAS) Chapter V

regulations.

This paper provides a background to the legal requirements of SOLAS Chapter V,

navigation equipment type approval, and Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA)

Marine Orders. The historical non-compliance of naval vessels, use of flag state waivers

and the current drivers behind the need for new warships to be registered and meet SOLAS

are discussed. This paper also examines the challenges of naval ship navigation system

certification including military Ships Inertial Navigation Systems (SINS) and Global

Position System (GPS) approval.

A typical navigation system example is provided representing the minimum equipment

requirements and the required interfaces between equipment. Additional aspects of a naval

navigation design are briefly discussed covering redundancy, Emissions Security

(EMSEC) and protecting classified data. The example also includes the typical additional

requirements on a military naval navigation system to provide data to other ships systems,

e.g. Combat System.

The paper also examines the commercial shipping trends of integrating navigation

functions in Integrated Navigation Systems (INS) and with other ship’s functionality in

Integrated Bridge Systems (IBS). The benefits of these systems are discussed and the

possible application to military naval vessels.

2) INTRODUCTION

The history of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) can be

traced back to the sinking of the Titanic. The first version of the convention was adopted in

1914 and prescribed the required emergency equipment and safety procedures. The

International Maritime Organization (IMO) was formed to bring international shipping

conventions into an international framework. The first task of IMO was to update the

SOLAS convention resulting in the 1960 convention. In 1974 the SOLAS convention was

completely updated including a simplified process for future amendments.

Naval vessels are using commercial navigation equipment more regularly as the drive to

reduce costs and provide an equivalent level of safety as commercial shipping. This brings

challenges in interfacing commercial equipment to military combat and control systems.

There is also a challenge of proving to regulators that military equipment provides at least

the same level of safety as the commercial equivalents.

3) MARITIME COMPLIANCE REGIME

Australian Maritime Safety Authority Marine Orders 21

The Navigation Act 19121 provides the Chief Executive Office of Australian Maritime

Safety Authority (AMSA) with the authority to make Marine Orders. The Navigation Act

1912 defines which vessels are covered by the act and the Marine Orders define the

detailed technical requirements that the vessels must comply with. Marine Orders also

provide the implementation of SOLAS. Marine Orders – Part 212 provides the

requirements for Safety of Navigation and Emergency Procedures and is presently at

Issue 7.

For the navigation systems, Marine Orders – Part 212 refers to SOLAS Chapter V

3

regulations which are discussed in the next section. Marine Orders – Part 212 requires that

type approvals for equipment that SOLAS mandates to be fitted to the vessel. These

functional requirements for type approvals are contained in IMO resolutions and circulars

referenced from Marine Orders – Part 212 Appendix 3. The specific requirements of the

IMO resolutions and circulars are discussed in the type approval section below.

SOLAS Chapter V

SOLAS Chapter V3 identifies the requirements for the safety of navigation. The chapter is

divided in to several regulations that cover all aspects of navigation. The chapters

particularly relevant to the vessel’s navigation system are:

• Regulation 17 – Electromagnetic compatibility;

• Regulation 18 – Approvals, surveys and performance standards of navigation

systems and equipment and voyage data recorder (VDR);

• Regulation 19 – Carriage requirements for shipborne navigational systems and

equipment; and

• Regulation 20 – Voyage Data Recorders (VDR).

Regulation 17 outlines the requirement for marine equipment to be designed and tested for

electromagnetic compatibility taking in to account IMO Resolution A.813(19)4.

Regulation 18 requires that mandatory navigation equipment (defined by Regulation 19

and 20) to be tested and type approved to specific IMO resolutions and circulars.

Regulation 19 identifies the navigation equipment that is required to be carried by a vessel.

The type and quantity of equipment depends on the Gross Tonnage of the vessel as shown

in Figure 1.

Regulation 20 covers the requirement for vessels engaged on international voyages to be

fitted with a VDR (dependent on the size and type of vessel).

Figure 1, SOLAS Mandatory Electronic Navigation Equipment Summary

Type Approval

A type approval provides the Classification Organisation with a level of confidence that

equipment complies with the required IMO resolutions and circulars. The International

Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has taken the majority of the equipment resolutions

and circulars and derived test standards to allow third party independent test agencies to

test navigation products in a consistent manner.

In addition to the specific functional and performance requirements of each type of

equipment there are also general IMO resolutions that apply to all equipment, for example

with IMO Resolution A.813(19)4 and A.694(17)

5. Compliance to these general

requirements is shown by testing to IEC 609456. IEC 60945 covers Electro-Magnetic

Compatibility (EMC), environmental and safety requirements.

Warship Non-Compliance

Regulation 1 of SOLAS Chapter V3 allows Governments to have exemptions for warships,

naval auxiliaries and other non-commercial government ships from SOLAS Chapter V3.

However these vessels are encouraged to act in a manner consistent, so far as reasonable

and practicable, with the requirements of SOLAS Chapter V3.

As a result naval vessels generally follow the procedures of SOLAS Chapter V3 and fit

similar equipment, however it is likely that naval vessels do not have all the equipment

required by SOLAS Chapter V and where the equipment is of military supply it is unlikely

to be type approved.

4) WARSHIP COMPLIANCE

Drivers For Future Compliance

The development of “Naval Rules” by classification societies such as Lloyd’s Registry has

provided a route for governments to have naval vessels assessed and classified against a set

of common requirements. This provides flag state authority with an independent review of

a naval ship design against ‘best of class’ requirements.

The Lloyd’s Registry Naval Rules7 is divided into different notations; the main notations

applicable to navigation are Safety of Navigation and Communications (SNC), Superior

Standard of Navigation (NAV) and Single Bridge Watchkeeper (NAV1). The SNC

notation is performance based with a set of goals against each section. In general

conformance against the SNC notation can be achieved by compliance with SOLAS

Chapter V3 regulations 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30 and 34.

NAV and NAV1 notations are both aimed at reduced-manning bridges (single operator for

NAV1) and are requirements based standards. The NAV notation, which is a requirement

for the Canberra Class, provides increased equipment requirements compared to SNC

notation and specifies requirements for bridge physical layout and alarm systems. NAV1

notation has additional requirements including a Bridge Warning System (BWS), the

integration and management of alarms across navigation, communications and power.

Military Equipment Type Approval

The majority of the navigation system needs of a naval ship can be met with IMO type

approved equipment, however there are a couple of areas where specialized military

products will be required.

Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers have become the standard positioning system

for many uses including ships. The civilian maritime market has a large number of type

approved receivers for both the NAVSTAR and GLONASS global navigation systems that

include Very High Frequency (VHF) radio receivers for the reception of differential

corrections.

The military market is more specialised with the majority of GPS receivers either in a card

format, e.g. GPS Receiver Application Module (GRAM); or targeted more at the portable

role, e.g. Defense Advanced GPS Receiver (DAGR). Whichever type of receiver is

selected, it will be required to be marinised and include displays to provide GPS position,

performance and warning indicators to the navigator.

Due to the nature of military operations, GPS receivers are also connected to Controlled

Reception Pattern Antennas (CRPAs) that have null-forming capabilities to reject

deliberate jamming and other forms of interference. Again these products were not

specifically designed for marine usage and require a degree of packaging to make them

suitable for the marine environment.

These factors result in a bespoke GPS made up of equipment from different manufacturers

and a certain amount of custom integration. Obtaining type approvals is an expensive and

time consuming activity and is unlikely to be done; instead the ship designer/systems

integrator will be required to prove equivalence to the IMO GPS resolutions,

MSC.112(73)8, and general requirements for shipborne equipment, A.694(17)

5, to both the

classification society and the flag state authority. These resolutions include requirements

for position performance, minimum displays and environmental performance.

The other typical piece of military navigation equipment installed on naval ships is a Ships

Inertial Navigation System (SINS). SINS are required to accurately stabilize the vessel’s

mission systems with respect to attitude and position. For the navigation system the SINS

provides an accurate source of heading that exceeds the IMO resolution performance

requirements for gyro compass systems, A.424(XI)9. Again, it is unlikely that the SINS

will be type approved and the ship designer or systems integrator will need to prove

equivalence to the IMO resolution for gyro for performance and environmental

requirements.

BAE Systems is presently generating equivalence documentation for GPS and SINS for the

Canberra Class. The equivalence includes assessments of the GPS and SINS used on the

Canberra Class against the functional requirements of the IMO resolutions, comparison of

military GPS receiver performance against IMO GPS and gyro performance requirements

and comparison of the military environmental standards against IEC 609456.

5) EXAMPLE NAVIGATION SYSTEM

Navigation System Aspects

An example of a typical modern naval navigation system with Lloyd’s Register

Classifications SNC and NAV notations is shown in Figure 2 for a vessel of 50 000 Gross

Tonnage. Ideally, all of the equipment would be type approved to the applicable IMO

resolutions, however it’s common that the naval vessels will require greater accuracy and

additional functionality. Typically, a naval vessel would consist of the following type

approved equipment:

• 3 GHz and 9 GHz navigation radars each with Automatic Radar Plotting Aids

(ARPA)

• Automatic Identification System (AIS);

• VDR;

• Electromagnetic speed log for speed through water;

• Doppler log for speed over ground;

• Echo sounder(s);

• Autopilot, either heading or track control; and

• Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS).

The positioning systems are military supply and unlikely to be type approved and would

consist of:

• Military GPS (capable of using commercial C/A code and military P(Y) code); and

• SINS.

In some cases a standalone type approved Differential GPS (DGPS) may be provided on

the bridge. On a naval vessel, the navigation system would also include a meteorological

subsystem to supply wind and barometric information for aircraft and combat system

operations.

Interfacing between the navigation components will be via National Marine Electronics

Association (NMEA) 018310 / IEC 61162

11. The internal interfacing includes:

• SINS providing heading and integrated GPS-SINS position to the navigation radars,

ECDIS and AIS;

• Electro-magnetic log supplies speed through water to the navigation radar and

ECDIS to allow drift calculations to be performed;

• AIS providing track information to the ARPA for display and correlation with radar

tracks;

• Navigation radars providing ARPA and AIS tracks and radar video to the ECDIS;

and

• All systems provide critical data and radar video to the VDR for recording

Figure 2, Example Navigation System

External Communications

External systems require various sources of navigation input as shown below in Table 1.

Table 1, Navigation System Typical External Communications

In addition to supplying the required data any data distribution system has to convert the

data in to the required format. Different external systems will require data over different

bearers including analogue (voltage, current or pulses), synchro (115 V 400 Hz) and

various digital formats.

Special Requirements For Naval Ships

There are some specific naval vessel requirements that impact the design of the navigation

system. First is the storage of classified information on commercial equipment. Generally,

current known navigation information is not classified, however route planning, and track

log information is considered classified. The VDR is an obvious example of equipment

that records navigation information that may be classified (ship’s position) and needs to be

controlled. Less obvious is that ECDIS incorporates a recording mechanism and equipment

such as GPS may also have a position log. The location of the equipment that stores the

data needs to be considered and the appropriate security put in place.

The second related issue is Emissions Security (EMSEC). Where classified data is

displayed or transmitted along an interface the equipment and installation should meet the

requirements of the Australian Government Information Security Manual12. This requires

classified equipment and interfaces to be physically and electrically isolated from un-

classified equipment. This impacts the installation design on the ship and needs to be

considered early in the design.

Finally, Emission Control (EMCON) needs to be considered for navigation transmitters,

specifically radars and AIS. The functionality of included power and standby controls

needs to be understood to ensure that inadvertent transmissions are not possible. Where the

functionality is not clear additional power switches or antenna switching in to dummy

loads may be required. However, this needs to consider the impact to equipment type

approvals.

6) FUTURE TRENDS

RAN Regulatory Framework

Following the recent Rizzo Report13 and the obligations under the new Work Health and

Safety (WHS) Act14 the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has approved the use of the North

Atlantic Treaty Organistaion (NATO) Naval Ship Code (NSC)15, described below. The

initial vessel to implement the NSC will be HMAS Choules and the Naval Flag

Administrator will be responsible for the development of implementation strategies for all

new and existing vessels.

The NSC15 or Allied Naval Engineering Publication (ANEP) ANEP77 was developed by

ten navies and six classification societies from around the world, including Australia. The

maintenance of the code is the responsibility if the International Naval Safety Association

(INSA). The NSC15 states the aim of the code is to provide a “cost effective goal based

standard for naval ship safety and environmental assurance, benchmarked against statute

and accepted by the global naval community and inter-government bodies”. The code is

divided into a number of chapters each covering different aspects of ship design. Each

chapter has a set of goals that have been developed by INSA which provides an equivalent

standard of safety to a commercial ship. Each chapter also has functional and performance

requirements and a description of common approaches to verification of the requirements.

NSC15 Chapter IX covers navigation and seamanship. Chapter IX regulation 0 lists the

goals of the navigation systems including independent navigation, awareness of fixed and

moving hazards, receiving weather forecasts, measuring and interpreting environmental

data and assisting other vessels and persons in distress. Regulation 0 also covers goals on

reliability and failure, requiring that essential safety functions are maintained following a

single system or equipment failure. Finally, possibly one of the most important goals, is

that the navigation systems’ essential safety functions are not to be dependent on the ships

combat system being available.

NSC15, Chapter IX Navigation and Seamanship, Regulation 1 covers the functional and

performance requirements of the navigation system. This chapter requires the ship to be

designed, constructed and maintained in accordance with the requirements of SOLAS.

Future revisions of the NSC should have the navigation requirements updated following

working group activities in this area.

Technology Drivers

In the last ten years there have been several changes to navigation systems. These have

included Integrated Bridge Systems (IBS), Integrated Navigation Systems (INS) and

improvements to equipment interfacing. Initially there was no definition of what an IBS

and an INS were and manufacturers could integrate functions without any specific

requirements for the integrated system. Equipment interfaces are starting to move away

from point to point NMEA 018310 serial communications to network based topologies.

The IMO resolution MSC.64(67)16 Annex 1 defines an IBS as a system that supports at

least two of the following operations: passage execution; communications; machinery

control; loading, discharge and cargo control; or safety and security. The IBS should

comply with the individual equipment resolutions and be as effective as individual

equipment. This requires redundant system design with fall back operation for essential

functions. This aligns well with the standard naval requirement for redundant systems and

networks. The IMO resolution also requires IBS systems to have a transitional form of

power from main to emergency source. Again, naval vessels typically have significant

Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) requirements and an IBS fits well with naval

requirements.

IMO MSC.252(83)17 defines the purpose of an INS to “enhance the safety of navigation by

providing integrated and augmented functions to avoid geographic, traffic and

environmental hazards” and requires an INS to “combine, process and evaluate data from

connected sensors and sources”. This is very well aligned with how the combat system

integrates data from multiple sensors.

The move to networked interfaces is being driven by the increased complexity in system

integration and greater need for connectivity, two of which are described below. NMEA

have developed NMEA 200018 based on Controller Area Network (CAN) system. CAN

was initially designed for use in the automotive industry and has high levels of robustness.

Several navigation manufacturers are distributing NMEA 0183 messages over Internet

Protocol (IP) based networks. Although both systems use different network technologies,

both allow data to be distributed from multiple sensors to multiple receivers using a

network topology and both have significantly higher bandwidth than RS-422 serial

communications. IP based networks onboard naval vessels can be used for more than just

NMEA 018310 distribution, it offers accurate transmission of video, timing and

management systems; for this reason it’s likely that IP based networks will become the

standard for navigation system communications on naval vessels.

7) REFERENCES

1 Australian Government, 1913, “Navigation Act 1912”.

2 Australian Maritime Safety Authority, 2010, “Marine Orders Part 21 Safety of

Navigation and emergency procedures”, Issue 7.

3 International Maritime Organization, 1974, “International Convention for the Safety of

Life at Sea (SOLAS)”, as amended.

4 International Maritime Organization, 1995, Resolution A.813(19) “General

Requirements for Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) for All Electrical and

Electronic Ship’s Equipment”.

5 International Maritime Organization, 1991, A.694(17) “General requirements for

shipborne radio equipment forming part of the global maritime distress and safety

system (GMDSS) and for electronic navigational aids”.

6 International Electrotechnical Commission, 2002, IEC 60945 “Maritime navigation and

radio communication equipment and systems - General requirements - Methods of

testing and required test results", Fourth Edition.

7 Lloyd’s Register, 2011, “Rules & Regulations for the Classification of Naval Ships

2011”.

8 International Maritime Organization, 2000, MSC.112(73) “Revised Performance

Standards for Shipborne Global Positioning System (GPS) Receiver Equipment”.

9 International Maritime Organization, 1979, A.424(XI) “Performance Standards for

Gyro-Compasses”.

10 National Marine Electronics Association, 2008, NMEA 0183, Version 4.0.

11 International Electrotechnical Commission, 2010, IEC 61162 “Maritime navigation and

radiocommunication equipment and systems - Digital interfaces”, Edition 4.0.

12 Department of Defence, 2011, “Australian Government Information Security Manual”.

13 Rizzo P J, July 2011, “Plan to Reform Support Ship Repair and Management Practices”.

14 Australian Government, 2011, “Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act 2010”.

15 International Naval Safety Association, Naval Ship Code (ANEP-77), Edition 2.

16 International Maritime Organization, 1996, MSC.64(67) “Recommendations on new

and amended performance standards”.

17 International Maritime Organization, 2007, MSC.252(83), “Adoption of the Revised

Performance Standards for integrated Navigation Systems (INS)”

18 National Marine Electronics Association, NMEA 2000 “Standard for Serial-Data

Networking of Marine Electronic Devices”, Edition 2.2.

9) BIOGRAPHIES

David Charles Bradley

David is a Combat Systems Engineering Manager at BAE Systems.

David graduated from Salford University, UK in 1990 with an Honours Degree in

Electronic and Electrical Engineering.

David spent 11 years at Royal Aerospace Establishment (and subsequent DRA and DERA)

conducted research and flight trials on helicopter navigation and flight control systems. For

the majority of this time David specialised in Naval Aviation and the Helicopter Ship

Dynamic Interface.

David spent 14 months at DSTO Fishermans Bend as part of the Anglo-Australian

Memorandum Of Understanding on Research conducting simulation trials on helicopter

ship operations before deciding to remain in Australia.

David joined Vision Systems (now Xtralis) in 2001 and worked as the lead systems

engineer and product manager for the development of smoke detection and voice

evacuation products.

David joined BAE Systems in 2009, initially working on ANZAC class update projects

before joining the Australian LHD project as the lead of the navigation team.

Andrew Scicluna

Andrew is a Combat Systems Engineer at BAE Systems.

Andrew graduated from RMIT University in 2007 with a Bachelor of Electronic

Engineering.

Andrew joined BAE Systems in January 2008 as a graduate engineer on ANZAC class

upgrade project to conduct test and integration of the navigation data distribution system in

preparation for the Anti Ship Missile Defence (ASMD) project.

Andrew joined the Australian LHD project navigation systems engineering team in 2010.