Finnish start-up nauticAi and Inmarsat, the world leader in global, mobile satellite communications, have signed an agreement for nauticAi to join the fast growing group of certified application providers to provide a dedicated application for Inmarsat’s Fleet Data service.

Developed by Inmarsat and Danelec Marine, and made commercially available earlier this year, Fleet Data collects data from onboard sensors, pre-processes that data, and uploads it to a central cloud-based database, equipped with a dashboard and an Application Programming Interface (API).

nauticAi will use the Fleet Data API to provide their Bridge Operations Quality Assurance BOQA-solution – a methodology adopted from the flight industry – as a simple way to proactively utilise VDR data and to automate and standardise Operational Quality Assurance across fleets of ships.

“Working with Fleet Data is great, since it removes the hassle of visiting ships and building expensive interfaces to the Voyage Data Recorder (VDR) and other ship systems. For us this is a true enabler and we can leverage our own expertise in creating highly visual and affordable analytic solutions in the cloud. For our customers it is even better, since it means that they can now easily and securely implement BOQA in their own operations with a simple and modest monthly subscription,” says Capt. Henrik Ramm-Schmidt, CEO and founder of nauticAi

The BOQA-methodology (Bridge Operations Quality Assurance) is inspired by its equivalent in the flight industry, and it was first introduced to maritime operations by the large cruise liners Royal Caribbean and Carnival some years ago. The need was to have a safety-solution which can provide a 24/7 continuous monitoring of sensor data and alarms, and to raise alerts if defined operational limits were deviated from. BOQA is also a way to proactively use the ships’ VDR data, as outlined by the Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF) in 2013.

BOQA is essentially an automated event tracker, which uses various rules and artificial intelligence techniques to detect anomalies and deviations in operational behaviour. Some of the key event types include route plan deviations, heavy weather, heavy motions, sudden stops at sea, under keel clearance, excessive rudder movement, black-outs and crash stops. New event types, such as close encounter detection, minimum CPA and TSS-violations are constantly in development.

“We are delighted to be working with an innovative start-up such as nauticAi,” said Marco Cristoforo Camporeale, Head of Digital Solutions, Inmarsat Maritime. “Safety at sea is part of our DNA and this partnership will help standardise the data collection of safety operational data and ultimately reduce incidents at sea and make ships safer.

“It will allow ship operators and managers to implement their own BOQA systems, through the nauticAi application on Fleet Data and via a secure platform that is fully scalable, fleet-wide and now commercially available on both Fleet Xpress and FleetBroadband,” says Mr Camporeale.

With the help of Fleet Data API, nauticAi can now take BOQA to a new level, by introducing ship performance and VDR alarms into the mix. This allows for new types of intelligent monitoring, including for example Charter party-compliance checks and alarm data trend analysis across a large fleet of ships. The goal with BOQA is to improve operational quality, increase safety and reduce fuel consumption.