On 11 November the Danish Maritime Authority announced that the EU-budget for structural funds is in its final phase of the current budget period and that there are still some funding opportunities available for maritime projects.

The Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme1 has open calls for seed money projects with a deadline of 9 December. Companies and organizations can apply for seed money, which may be used in projects that falls in line with the EU’s macro-regional strategy for the Baltic region. It is understood that it is possible to apply for funds up to €50,000.

What does your agenda look like for 18-21 November?

At INC2019 you would be spending the week in Edinburgh with a schedule that includes these highlights:

Monday – Pre-Conference Training Short Course

Monday evening – Meet the Lord Provost at a drinks reception at Akva

Tuesday morning – Hear from keynote speakers including Prof Sheila Rowan, the Chief Scientific Advisor to Scotland, and Dana Goward, President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation

Tuesday afternoon – Enjoy Prof Todd Humphrey’s keynote on geolocation before going to the National Museum of Scotland to raise a glass with Dolly the Sheep

Wednesday morning – Find out why people get lost inside buildings in the Human Navigation session

Wednesday afternoon – Get the latest from the GNSS Technical Director for the UK Space Agency, Andy Proctor, and relax at the networking event in the exhibition hall

Thursday morning – Tommy Cooke, CEO of Calnex Solutions, provides a summary of the latest on resilient timing

Thursday afternoon – End the conference on a high with keynotes from DSTL and the NATS’ Drone Lead, Andy Sage

Don’t miss out – register now!

On 20 October the first non-stop commercial airline flight from New York to Sydney landed after 19 hours 16 minutes in the air.

A total of 49 passengers and crew were on the flight, which was used to run a series of experiments to assess health and well-being onboard. It is understood that data from these experiments will be used to help shape the crew rostering and customer service of Qantas’ ultra long haul flights in future including what is known as Project Sunrise.

Tests ranged from monitoring pilot brain waves, melatonin levels and alertness, through to exercise classes for passengers.

Cabin lighting and in-flight meals were also adjusted to help reduce jetlag, according to the medical researchers and scientists who have partnered with Qantas.

The 11th Tripartite Meeting of the Heads of the European Telecommunications Satellite Organisation (EUTELSAT IGO), the International Mobile Satellite Organisation (IMSO) and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organisation (ITSO) took place at the IMSO Headquarters in London, on 5 September 2019.

Focus was placed on the issue of capacity-building, with the attendees agreeing to continue their commitment to capacity building initiatives related to effective use of satellite based telecommunications, reinforcement of partnerships and long term sustainability of satellite activities.

They also discussed the co-operation required between their organisations in view of the current climate of rapid evolution in the satellite communication market. The meeting reached a consensus that the dissemination of information and sharing of best practices in use and development of satellite-based telecommunication services was imperative for the organisations.

The World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19) is to be held from 28 Oct-22 Nov, and will address requirements for some of the advanced technological innovations set to play a pivotal role in tomorrow’s digital economy with immense implications for the trillion-dollar telecommunication and ICT industry. This event will be preceded by the Radiocommunication Assembly 2019 (RA-19), 21-25 October. Delegates will gather at Sharm El-Sheikh International Congress Centre (SHICC).

Held every three to four years, the WRC is mandated to review and revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the use of radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits.

WRC-19 will facilitate the management of scarce orbit/spectrum resources in the interest of end-users, with global implications for both policy-makers and the industry.

INC 2019 is to be held from 18-21 November 2019 at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

Registration is now ope, ticket pricing options are available.

RIN members may take advantage of discounted rates, and are advised to ensure they have signed in to their rin.org.uk account before purchasing tickets to ensure that this discount is applied.

Student rates are also available to anybody in full-time education.

From 10 to 14 May 2020 FIG and the Dutch local organisers will welcome surveyors to Amsterdam. FIG Working Week is an exciting week-long conference that brings the international community of surveying and spatial professionals together to experience a mix of interesting technical sessions and workshops, a trade exhibition and a variety of side events and social functions.

The Working Week 2020 is an opportunity for the entire FIG community to meet, discuss, learn and get inspired on overall emerging challenges currently faced by our world. As Surveyors and related professions, we have not only the ability but the responsibility to actively participate in the solutions of these challenges. The technical programme will consist of around 500 presentations in the broad field of surveying including best practices and new research on sensing technologies and spatial data processing.

Oceanology International is turning 50 as the world’s largest ocean technology exhibition and conference. New features, free interactive seminars and 500+ exhibitors will join the celebration in the only event that brings together the 3 key players in the industry: businesses, academics and government.

Oceanology International 2020 is where you will have the opportunity to be where the industry meets. And better yet: for free!

The show is a hub for innovation and information, and opportunities emerge everywhere. It will connect you to the industry experts writing the future. Our free conference sessions and live demonstrations will boost your technical and market knowledge.

The Position Location and Navigation Symposium (PLANS) is a biennial technical conference that occurs in the spring of even numbered years. Our mission is to provide a forum to share the latest advances in navigation technology.

The PLANS conference is a four day conference with 1 day dedicated to tutorials and three days to technical sessions. The tutorials provide attendees with the opportunity to learn about navigation technology from well-known industry experts. A variety of tutorials are offered to serve the professional needs of both newcomers and those well versed in the field of navigation.

Twenty-four half-day technical sessions are offered over a three day period, with four sessions running simultaneously each morning and afternoon. At the technical sessions scientists, researchers and engineers from around the world present their latest work in the field of navigation.

The Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management together with IALA are the host organizations for the 14th IALA Symposium to be held from 25-29 May 2020 in the WTC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

This event will be the first Symposium of its kind combining the topics of modern Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) and the implementation of maritime services under the e-Navigation concept.

It was reported from Montreal on 4 October 2019 that the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) has secured support for four key recommendations from States and ICAO, recommendations it has made during the 40th ICAO Assembly.

These covered:

– The need for improving guidance and directions to states on securing cyber resilience in aviation;

– Building capacity in ATM through adequate funding and flexible ANSP models;

– Improving the efficiency of ATM through required navigation performance (RNP);

– Securing future services through adherence to key principles and mutual value.

By kind courtesy of the news service provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) readers can view The Netherlands featured in this false-colour image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. This image was processed in a way that included the near-infrared channel, which makes vegetation appear bright red.

To the north of The Hague is the coastal town of Noordwijk, home to ESA’s European Space Technology Research Centre (ESTEC).
ESTEC is ESA’s technical centre where new missions are designed, their industrial development managed and, in some cases, spacecraft and instruments are tested.

Our illustration kindly provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) on 1 October indicates that a huge iceberg has broken off the Amery Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Dubbed D28, the iceberg is around 1600 sq km – about the size of Greater London. It is approximately 30 km wide and 60 km long, and is estimated to weigh over 300 billion tonnes.

Our illustration shows the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, The Red Arrows, flying past the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, trailing the red, white and blue smoke over the bridge on 1 October.

Currently, The Red Arrows are deployed on Exercise WESTERNHAWK 2019.
According to the Ministry of Defence this is the first time the Red Arrows have been to North America since 2008 and the deployment will be the most ambitious tour of Canada and the United States ever undertaken by the team – going coast-to-coast.

Our image here is of the mv Stena Impero seen here sailing from Bandar Abbas (Iran), en route to Dubai after being released by Iranian officials on 27 September.

Erik Hanell, President and CEO, Stena Bulk commented: ‘The Stena Impero has now left Iranian waters and is on route to Dubai. The Master has reported that all crew members are safe and in high spirits following release. Upon arrival, the crew will receive medical checks and de-briefing by the Company, following which arrangements have been made for them to return directly to their families in their respective countries.’

We were informed by Moshe Idan, IAAC President, that this event will be held on 11 November in the Daniel Hotel, Herzelia.

This workshop is organized by Professor Daniel Zelazo from the Technion and will be delivered by him and Professor Angelo Cenedese of the University of Padua, Italy.

Dr Diaz was recognized for graduate student excellence in Global Navigation Satellite Systems in his thesis, Design of an Integrity Support Message for Offline Advanced RAIM.

Professor Teunissen was recognized for his influential and ground-breaking contributions to the algorithmic foundations of satellite navigation, and for sustained dedication to the global education of the next generation of navigation engineers.

The deadline for submitting abstracts for the ION co-located International Technical Meeting (ITM) and Precise Time and Time Interval (PTTI) Systems and Applications Meeting 2020 is 10 October.

Abstracts may currently be submitted for the co-located ION ITM/PTTI 2020 conference to be held from 21 to 24 January 2020 at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay in San Diego, California.

From our Austrian member institute, the Österreichischer Verein für Navigation, we have received word of the latest issue of their regular publication, The Navigation Flashlight. It is published three times a year, currently in its nineteenth year of publication and it is in German.

Reminder: Von 11.-12. Dezember 2019 findet in Bernau am Chiemsee die Ahorn 2019 statt. Die Deadline für die Einreichung von Tagungsbeiträgen ist der 27. September 2019! Genauere Informationen unter: https://www.dgon-ahorn.org/de/home.html

Ausserdem findet am 12. November 2019 das nächste Navigations Get-Together an der TU Wien statt. Sie sind herzlich dazu eingeladen! Genauere Informationen folgen noch.

On 9 September at the start of this year’s London International Shipping Week Nusrat Ghani, Maritime Minister on behalf of HMG, confirmed that it will enable construction of a new advanced ship for the General Lighthouse Authority, Trinity House, to replace the ageing THV Patricia, built in 1982 by Henry Robb of Leith.

The vessel, yet to be named, will establish and service aids to navigation in some of the most dangerous waters of NW Europe, marking channels and hazards and using the latest technology.

On 24 September the UK Government announced £20 million of new funding to help the nation cope with the potential impacts of space weather events.

This funding, from the Government’s Strategic Priorities Fund, will support research projects aimed at improving the ability of the Met Office to predict space weather events and therefore reduce their potential impact.

Reliable charts of sea-ice conditions and forecasts are of vital importance for maritime safety, safe navigation and planning. The continued retreating and thinning of Arctic sea ice calls for a more effective way of producing detailed and timely ice information – which is where artificial intelligence comes in. This was reported in a feature by the European Space Agency (ESA) on 10 September.

The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), the Technical University of Denmark and Harnvig Arctic & Maritime have initiated the project known as Automated Sea Ice Products (ASIP) – funded by the Innovation Fund Denmark. This project aims to develop an automatic sea-ice service that can provide more timely and detailed sea-ice information to improve efficiency and safety of marine operations in the Arctic.

ASIP merges Copernicus Sentinel-1 imagery with other satellite sensor data, such as passive microwave data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) to resolve ambiguities that can occur in SAR imagery, such as during windy sea conditions. ASIP uses a convolutional neural network system that is trained with vast datasets of ice charts, to generate ice maps automatically.

On 18 September the European Space Agency (ESA) reported that over 700 Earth observation satellites are orbiting our planet, transmitting hundreds of terabytes of data to downlink stations every day. Processing and extracting useful information is a huge data challenge, with volumes rising quasi- exponentially.

The news item from ESA informed that artificial intelligence algorithms – computer systems that learn and act in response to their environment – can improve detection rates in Earth observation. For example, it is common to use the ‘random forests’ algorithm, which uses a training dataset to learn to detect different land-cover types or areas burnt by wildfires. In machine learning, computer algorithms are trained, in the statistical sense, to split, sort and transform data to improve dataset classification, prediction, or pattern discovery.

In Brussels on 11 September signatories called up on the EU Institutions and Members States to take the necessary steps to implement the joint declaration adopted that day, outlining their shared commitment to improving Europe’s airspace.

At the Digital European Sky conference, organised under the Finnish Presidency of the EU, representatives of 21 EU aviation and workers’ associations were due to sign a joint declaration committing to a set of concrete actions to finally and fully implement the vision of a Single European Sky (SES).

The joint declaration will be sending a strong signal that the SES vision can only be achieved through the collaborative and coordinated efforts of all stakeholders, including Member States and the European Institutions.

In preparation for an August 2018 scheduled flight from Perth Airport to Christmas Island, an apron engineer fitted landing gear ground locks (LGGL) to an Airbus A320 before it was towed to its departure bay. The apron engineer then went to supervise the refuelling of another aircraft, with the intention of returning for the refuelling of the A320 and removing the LGGL.
Approximately 40 minutes later, a flight crew member’s pre-flight walk-around identified the presence of the LGGL. The captain acknowledged the flight crew member’s observation but anticipated that normal departure procedures would lead to the removal of the LGGL before flight.