Proposta Tesi presso NEXT Ingegneria dei Sistemi S.p.A.
Nell’ambito del progetto SafePort, progetto co finaziato dalla commissione Europea nell’ambito del 7° Programma Quadro, si propone la seguente tesi:
Sviluppo di un modello per l’autenticazione di un bene in movimento attraverso l’uso di un sistema GNSS.
- Analisi delle vulnerabilità inerenti il processo di autenticazione di asset in movimento;
- Definizione di un modello di autenticazione innovativo basato sull’utilizzo di un sistema GNSS
- Sviluppo dell’algoritmica necessaria ad una sua sperimentazione
Requisiti
- Buona conoscenza di Java e C++ e/o C# e/o Object C
- Buona conoscenza dei principi di crittografia
- Buona conoscenza dei principali cipher
SAFEPORT Objectives
The imminent introduction of the EGNOS SoL service provides an opportunity for European Ports to improve their deteriorating safety record while at the same time increasing efficiency.
The deteriorating safety record has been vividly highlighted in the European Maritime Safety Agency’s (EMSA) latest Accident Review (2007). The EMSA statistics show that 762 vessels were involved in 715 accidents (sinkings, collisions, groundings, fires/explosions and other significant accidents) in and around EU waters during 2007. This represented a significant increase over the number recorded for 2006 (535 vessels in 505 accidents). This reflects trends in global reviews undertaken by P&I clubs and other maritime interests. Indeed, classification society Det Norske Veritas says that its statistics show that a ship is twice as likely to be involved in a serious grounding, collision or contact accident today compared to only five years ago. In addition, estimates also show that the costs of these accidents have doubled (DNV press release dated 20.2.2008).
Many European Ports such as Dublin are either working at or will reach full capacity in the next few years. Traditionally the way to deal with this problem has been to expand; to occupy more land. Increasingly both for environmental reasons and industrial and population density reasons this is no longer an option in many cases. One potential resolution to this need for greater capacity is to use the existing infrastructure more efficiently. Efficiency could be increased in ports by reducing the waiting and transit times of vessels from the port entrance to their berth, and reducing docking times. The decline in the number of seagoing personnel, combined with the ever increasing number of vessels in service has led to a significant reduction in the experience of crews. So while there is considerable potential for increasing efficiency in port operations, the gradual reduction of experience raises considerable safety issues. Where Ports are able to expand the expected increase in traffic, again combined with diminishing experience is also raising very serious safety concerns.
While docking facilities are getting older, docking activities are increasing the world over. In recent times both the costs of repairing vessels and even the docks themselves after a hard landing have increased significantly. The potential cost and environmental damage of hard landings for vessels carrying hazardous cargos is staggering. When the 27,000gt container ship Claudel hit a jetty at Rotterdam on 18th January 2007 it damaged pipes connected to the jetty, as a result of which up to 800 tonnes of crude oil spilled into the harbour. It was reported to be the biggest spill ever at Europe’s biggest port.
All this leads to very strong requirements coming from port authorities to
- improve safety in ports
- improve efficiency in port operations and manage the consequent safety implications
- compensate for the diminishing experience of crews
The aviation industry has addressed the safety issues created by the desire for improved efficiency (e.g. flights land every 90 seconds at Heathrow airport in the UK) through ever increasing amounts of automation. Today the role of airline pilots has largely shifted to a supervision position allowing them to concentrate on dealing with unexpected events while the aviation computers have moved to deal with the complexities of guiding and flying the aircraft.
The main aim of SafePort is to assist the move towards safe and efficient control of the transit of all vessels in a port from the port entrance to their berths and out again using EGNOS SoL services.
In order to realise this aim we need to develop 2 separate but interdependent systems.
- The first is an Active Vessel Traffic Management and Information System, or A-VTMIS [Stateczny,2005]. The idea of which is to take the state of the art in VTMIS which is a passive system providing information and advisories and use this as a basis to actively manage the transit of all vessels in the jurisdiction of the VTMIS. The A-VTMIS must plan provably safe paths for multiple vessels as they arrive from the entrance to the harbour to their berths and ensure that the vessels follow these paths safely without conflicting with the paths of other vessels.
- The second system is a pilot aid (SafePilot) which will ensure that harbour pilots or crew can safely and efficiently navigate the courses provided by the A-VTMIS and execute precision docking manoeuvres for large vessels
In order to achieve these objectives the accuracy, reliability and SoL aspects of EGNOS are critical. The combination of the accuracy, the availability of the integrity function, and the availability of a single standardised service offer at all European Ports mean that we will be able to develop an A-VTMIS which will be capable of planning and managing efficient and safe paths for multiple vessels. Additionally, the implementation of authentication mechanisms to support identification and safe recognition of assets in the Maritime operations (e.g. cargo, ships, etc.) is essential for safety-related operations. The A-VTMIS will be developed to operate safely within the limits of the integrity function e.g. vessel paths will automatically allow for the 6 second warning, so that if the signal is received the pilot or crew will have sufficient time to fail safe. Fail safe in this context means all vessels being managed by the A-VTMIS will be informed that their GNSS is no longer reliable and will be able to revert to pilot or crew management without danger of collision. In some cases this may mean that vessels are brought to a safe stop. SafePilot will be based on measures performed by a professional GNSS receiver and will exploit the EGNOS Commercial Data Distribution Service (CDDS) and SoL services to achieve the very high accuracy required to safely dock large vessels and again ensure the availability of a fail-safe. Fail-safe in this context means that the vessel can be stopped during the docking manoeuvre if the integrity function indicates that their GNSS is no longer reliable.
Contatti: Antonio Casoria
e-mail: antonio.casoria@next.it
itmeeting.wordpress.com 