It was reported by Northrop Grumman Corporation from Charlottesville, Virginia on 2nd December that the Sperry Marine business unit had introduced a new compact integrated bridge system (CIBS) designed to improve situational awareness and ship efficiency while reducing installation costs.

On 3rd December it was reported by the European Space Agency (ESA) that the engineering model of the first Galileo satellites had completed platform integration tests at the Thales Alenia Space facility in Rome.

The platform is now undergoing functional testing. Delivery of the engineering model payload from Astrium UK is expected this month.

THE ROLE OF NAVIGATION IN SUPPORT OF HUMAN ACTIVITY

News has been received from the Polish Naval Academy, the Institute of Navigation and Hydrography, and the Polish Navigation Forum of this event the XVIIth International Scientific and Technical Conference, to be held September 23 to 25 in Gdynia, Poland.

The goal of the conference is to create circumstances for meetings and discussions with scientific and industrial communities as well as practitioners dealing with the problems of safety of navigation and development of maritime industries.

Materials and papers applied for the Conference can be written and presented in Polish and English.

More information can be found at navsup.eu.

The site of a ground station for Galileo, Europe’s global navigation satellite system, inside the Guiana Space Centre (CSG), near Kourou in French Guiana, was inaugurated on 19th November and made available by France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES). It will play an essential role in the setting up of the Galileo system, since it will accommodate the most comprehensive of the Galileo ground segment stations.

International Symposium: Enhanced Solutions for Aircraft and Vehicle Surveillance Applications, ESAVS 2010 is to be held from 16th to 18th March 2010 at MARITIM proArte Hotel Berlin.

A Call for Papers has been issued. Please note the following key dates:

• Submission of Abstracts: 1st December 2009

• Notfication of authors: 22nd December 2009

• Distribution of Programme: 15th January 2010

Information and on-line registration can be found at
dgon.de, button ESAVS 2010.

Further details may be obtained from Reinhold Thierse, the Symposium Co-ordinator at the German Institute of Navigation.

Now in its ninth year, eNavigation 2009 will focus on the user: from the individual mariner, to the fleet manager, to waterways and harbour authorities, to regulatory and environmental agencies.

Said to be the only conference of its kind in the USA, eNavigation 2009 provides the operations sector of the maritime community with an opportunity to interact with the regulators, policymakers and international organizations making and implementing AIS and e-Navigation policy.

DUBLIN SURFACE MOVEMENTS

The Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS) supplied by HITT of The Netherlands officially became operational at Dublin Airport in the last week of October. The system ensures safe and efficient movement of vehicles and aircraft in all weathers.

Even in the current economic situation Dublin Airport frequently operates near capacity, averaging 22 flights per hour, with peak traffic almost twice as high. Over 90% of this traffic uses the same single runway. The system limits the reduction of runway capacity and prevents shutting down the airport due to poor weather.

Location Technologies and Solutions: The Next Frontier

The world has seen substantial advances in the design, modernization, and applications of GNSS. Location-based technologies have triggered the go-ahead for smart phones, future phones for communication and navigation, autonomous operation of unmanned vehicles, and urban challenges. This conference will provide an update on satellite-based and integrated navigation systems. The conference will also cover the latest developments in navigation and positioning for land, sea, and air with special focus on GNSS augmentation.

Abstract Submission
Authors are invited to submit a 250 to 300 word abstract, indicating the most appropriate session(s) for the paper. Abstracts may be submitted electronically by e-mail to Dr. Ahmed El Rabbany or the Arab Institute of Navigation.

It was announced on 21st October by the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Maritime Bureau (IMB) in both London and Kuala Lumpur that global piracy figures have already surpassed the total number of attacks recorded in 2008. It was also revealed that the total number of incidents in which guns were used had risen by more than 200% compared to the corresponding period in 2008. A total of 306 incidents were reported to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) in the first nine months of 2009, while in 2008, the total number of attacks for the year was 293.

On 19th October the European Space agency (ESA) issued a communiqué on the conference entitled The Ambitions of Europe in Space which had been convened on 15th and 16th October. The event brought together members of the European Parliament, Council, European Commission, agencies, industry, research entities, operators, financing institutions as well as interested people from the media and public.
In his opening speech, the newly re-elected president of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, noted that space is an enabling tool allowing Europe to face some fundamental challenges: fighting the economic crisis, ensuring the well-being of our citizens, tackling climate change, finding ways to unleash our full potential for innovation and job creation, and to bring about a true knowledge society, as well as reinforcing Europe’s position in the world scene.

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) announced on 20th October that it welcomed the signing of the contract between the Department of Energy & Climate Change, The Crown Estate, NATS En Route and the wind industry’s Aviation Investment Fund Company (AIFCL) to progress the development of the
Raytheon solution.
The Raytheon solution is a hardware and software fix to the detection of wind turbines on radar systems, which will eliminate wind turbine interference of en route radar displays. It is estimated that currently there are six gigawatts of wind energy capacity held back due to objections from civil and Ministry of Defence (MoD) aviation authorities. This is enough capacity to power 3.4 million homes.

ICAO reports that the Global Air Traffic Management Forum on Civil/Military Co-operation will be held at ICAO Headquarters in Montreal from 19th to 21st October. The forum theme is: Time to take it global: Meeting each other’s needs without compromising the Mission.

During a press conference on 1st October, Antonio Tajani, European Commission Vice-President for Transport Policy, announced the official start of operations for EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service.

This is a satellite-based augmentation system that improves the accuracy of satellite navigation signals over Europe. The system consists of transponders aboard three geostationary satellites over the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Europe, linked to a network of about 40 ground stations and four control centres.

Prof Dr Adam Weintrit, Dean of the Faculty of Navigation, Head of the Department of Navigation at Gdynia Maritime University, has reported the publication of The Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS): An Operational Handbook of which he is the author.

Following a highly successful strategy to support Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East through regional conferences designed to support the building of greater ANSP capability, it was announced in mid-August that CANSO is inviting delegates to register for the first such conference for the Latin American & Caribbean region.

To be held on Tuesday, 27 October 2009 at 1600hrs at “Kastellet”, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm, Sweden.

To be held on Tuesday, 27 October 2009 at 1500hrs at the “Kastellet”, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm, Sweden.

On 22nd September it was announced from Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine HQ in Charlottesville, Virginia that the Sperry Marine business unit had received type approval from the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping for its VisionMaster FT™ family of marine radars.

It was reported from Egersund, Norway, on 22nd September that Jeppesen Marine is contributing to the training of the next generation of seafarers in electronic navigational charts and ECDIS by supplying systems and data to one of Norway’s leading maritime training institutions, Bergen Maritime Technical School. In addition to the C-MAP Professional vector database and ENCs that Jeppesen Marine already supplies for the school’s bridge simulators, the company will now supply more than 50 C-MAP OceanView systems for route planning in an office environment.

24th September marked the 32nd celebration of World Maritime Day, the annual occasion when the IMO leads the world in highlighting a key issue for the Organization and the shipping industry. This year, the theme for World Maritime Day was Climate Change: a challenge for IMO too.

It was announced from London on 9th September that Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Sperry Marine business unit has been chosen by the Brazilian Navy to supply state-of-the-art navigation systems for four new NAPA 500-ton patrol vessels, with options for six additional vessels.

The 21st report of the UK Airprox Board (UKAB) was published on 22nd July. It covers statistics for all of 2008 together with findings on recorded Airprox incidents within UK airspace between July and December 2008. During the last six months of 2008, 68 Airprox were reported and investigated, 22 fewer than the average of comparable figures recorded in each of the previous five years.

Air traffic demand down

At the end of August it was announced from Geneva by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) that international scheduled traffic results for July showing passenger demand declining 2.9% compared to the same month in the previous year while freight demand was down 11.3%. The international passenger load factors stood at 80.3%.

New York Airspace Working Group
On 14th August the US Federal Aviation Administration convened a New York Airspace Working Group that will review current operating procedures over the Hudson and East Rivers and to recommend safety improvements before the end of August.

Ice protection systems
On 3rd August the FAA announced it had changed its certification standards for transport category aircraft to require either the automatic activation of ice protection systems or a method to tell pilots when they should be activated.

NAV55 was held at the end of July with a new Chairman, Mike Sollosi of the United States Coast Guard. The previous Chairman, Kees Polderman, who had served for 11 years stood down at the previous meeting.

Among other topics:

Changes to SOLAS were developed to introduce a new requirement for an annual test of AIS. This, if it is accepted, will come into force in 2012. Guidelines for Integrated Bridge Systems and performance standards for Bridge Alert Management were finalised and work began on revising the performance standards for VDRs to take advantage of the increased availability of memory over the past 12 years.