A Study on Weather Routing System Using INMARSAT Data Communications-II : System Improvement for Practical Operation
Hideki HAGIWARA, Ruri Suzuki, Susumu KUWASHIMA, Makoto HIGASHI · The Journal of Japan Institute of Navigation · 1993
In this study, an advanced weather routing system using INMARSAT data communications has been developed, and the onboard experiment has been carried out since 1990 with the container ships plying Japan-California route. After the first experiment performed in Nov. 1990-Mar. 1991, the system has been improved mainly in the following points. (1) The data communication speed was increased up to 4,800 bps by using new INMARSAT terminal with data/fax line, which enabled us to send a large amount of information such as surface pressure charts to a ship. (2) The function to evaluate the captain's route was added to the system. (3) The wind/wave data set based on 10-day numerical forecasts by the U.S. National Meteorological Center was prepared for the optimum route calculation. Using the improved system, the second onboard experiment was performed in Nov. 1992-Mar. 1993 and the effectiveness of the system was thoroughly demonstrated.