Ship' s Health Condition, Operational Status and Performance Remote Monitoring Based on Wireless Sensor Network and Technical Experience Management System

The project‟s R&D effort will lead to a product / platform aimed to be used by maritime companies that own, manage and operate any type of ships.  The goal of the project is to develop a smart wireless sensor network  platform  that  can  be  used  to  monitor  a  ship  status  on  a  24-7  basis,  to  apply  condition  based monitoring (CBM)  models and services to a maritime company and to allow a maritime company to operate in an environmental friendly way.

CBM is the new basic maintenance model that is adopted by most of the industries  in  different  sectors,  in  order  to  reduce  the  operational  cost  and  increase  the  efficiency  of  the production lines. Only during the last two years the maritime companies have started to research methods and products to implement CBM in their fleets. The main reasons for that are: the reduction of the profits during the last three years, the low experience and training of the crews in order to reduce the cost of the salaries, and the new  satellite networks that offer global on-line data communication with the ships that make feasible the remote health monitoring.

Based on the knowledge of the partners in wireless sensor networks, optical sensors, and data modeling and handling,  we aim to develop and offer to the global maritime market a new innovative, reliable and low cost platform for  remote health monitoring, diagnosis and prognosis of the ships‟ status, including the engines, the  shafts,  the  pumps,  the  power  generators,  the  grains  and  other  critical  parts  of  the  engine  and  cargo department. Our research and developing activity during the project will aim to:

• Develop new optical sensors for measurement parameters like fuel type and exhausts that cannot be measured in real time with of the self products.
• Develop the entire wireless sensor networks including software and hardware for the ship condition monitoring.
• Develop an experience management system for handling, analyze and process the data  of the sensor network and the system users. Based on that we will implement a full CBM model.

The results of the project will lead us to the offer of new products and services according to the need of the maritime market for the condition monitoring and maintenance of the ships.