Design of an integrated e-Telecom system for improving telecom systems on ships

Abstract The advancement of communication technologies including satellites has been conducive to the ever-evolving ship management. The increasing needs for the accident prevention and the optimized shipping lead to a wide range of methods of ship management using the telecom systems onboard ships. Future ships including smart-ships will be equipped with telecom systems capable of dealing with the ship management and operation in collaboration with land stations. Yet, currently, the development and application of telecom systems onboard ships are nearly at standstill due to the maritime regulations set out decades ago which limit the technological development and translate new technologies as costly investments. Unlike the technological advancement of land-based telecom systems, the existing telecom systems onboard ships have not been integrated until now but installed and operated separately on board ships. Beyond new and/or reinforced features, future ships should consider both scalable and operational aspects. In the future, telecom systems onboard ships will manage all ship-related data and play pivotal roles in controlling ships anywhere in the world. In that respect, it is crucial to integrate the discrete communication systems for stability and efficiency of telecom systems onboard ships. The integration of telecom systems onboard ships will facilitate the availability of futuristic technologies such as unmanned vessels and maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS). This paper proposes a method of designing an e-telecom system integrating the existing telecom systems onboard ships. Despite the proposed e-telecom system’s slower performance in latency resulting from additional devices, the results of the present experiment prove that there is no significant difference in its latency in data processing in comparison to the 
existing telecom system.