Marine electronics

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Marine electronics refers to electronics devices designed and classed for use in the marine environment on board ships and yachts where even a small amount of salt water can destroy some electronics devices. Therefore, the majority of these types of devices are either water resistant or waterproof.

Contents

Marine electronics devices include chartplotter, marine VHF radio, autopilot and self-steering gear, fishfinder and sonar, marine radar, satellite navigation device, fibre optic gyrocompass, satellite television, and marine fuel management.

Communication

The electronics devices communicate by using a protocol defined by National Marine Electronics Association(NMEA), with two standards available, NMEA 0183 (serial communication network) and NMEA 2000 (controller-area network based technology). There is also Lightweight Ethernet (LWE).

In recent years, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has created a new standards suite for "Digital interfaces for navigational equipment within a ship". This is known as IEC 61162 and included NMEA 0183, NMEA 2000 and LWE.

Additionally, different suppliers of marine electronics have their own communications protocol.

Marine Electronics Communications
StandardElectrical standardProtocol typeConnectorSimplex/duplexTerminationManufacturerCompatibilityPowerNotes
NMEA 0180/0182 RS-232 ASCII serial Simplex
NMEA 0183 RS-422 ASCII serialTerminals Simplex N/AVarious4800baud 8N1 https://web.archive.org/web/20140215150802/http://www.kh-gps.de/nmea.faq, https://www.raymarine.com/view/index-id=5534.html
Seatalk RS-422 ASCII serial Raymarine 4800baud https://www.raymarine.com/view/index-id=5535.html
NMEA 2000 CAN bus SAE J1939 binaryDeviceNet 5-pin A-coded M12 screw connector Duplex 120RVariousIEC 61162-3, 250kbs
SeaTalkNG CAN bus SAE J1939 BinaryProprietary Duplex 120RRaymarineNMEA 2000 https://www.raymarine.com/view/index-id=5536.html
Simnet CAN bus SAE J1939 Binary Duplex 120R Simrad NMEA 2000
Furuno CAN CAN bus SAE J1939 binaryFurno NMEA 2000
Signal K Ethernet, WiFi HTTP https://signalk.org/
NMEA OneNet Ethernet, WiFi https://www.nmea.org/content/STANDARDS/OneNet
SeaTalkhs Ethernet, WiFi RayNet Raymarine https://www.raymarine.com/view/index-id=5537.html

Another important part of marine electronics is the navigation equipment. Here compasses, which includes both gyrocompasses and magnetic compasses, make up for equipment that is used by the entire shipping industry.

Industry

Some manufacturers specialize more in equipment for commercial vessels such as tankers and general cargo vessels. This industry is relatively small with worldwide sales of $3.2 billion in 2015. The top manufacturer was Japan-based Furuno, followed closely by Norway-based Navico, a holding company for several current and former industry brands (B&G, C-MAP, Lowrance Electronics, Simrad Yachting), with revenue of $308 million. [1] Rounding out the top five are Japan Radio Company in third, Garmin (popular with recreational users) in fourth, and Wärtsilä (Sam Electronics and Transas) in fifth. [1] The next four top manufacturers are Raymarine Marine Electronics (a subsidiary of FLIR Systems), Raytheon Anschütz, Sperry Marine, and Tokyo Keiki. [1] |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140215150802/http://www.kh-gps.de/nmea.faq Other companies outside of the industry's top ten that have a significant presence chartplotters include Samyung ENC, Hummingbird (Johnson Outdoors), Murphy (Enovation Controls), Naviop, SI-TEX Marine Electronics, and TwoNav. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IEEE-488</span> General Purpose Interface Bus (GPIB) specification

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NMEA 0183 is a combined electrical and data specification for communication between marine electronics such as echo sounder, sonars, anemometer, gyrocompass, autopilot, GPS receivers and many other types of instruments. It has been defined and is controlled by the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA). It replaces the earlier NMEA 0180 and NMEA 0182 standards. In leisure marine applications it is slowly being phased out in favor of the newer NMEA 2000 standard, though NMEA 0183 remains the norm in commercial shipping.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Navigator</span> Crew position responsible for navigation of an aircraft or vessel

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A vehicle bus is a specialized internal communications network that interconnects components inside a vehicle. In electronics, a bus is simply a device that connects multiple electrical or electronic devices together. Special requirements for vehicle control such as assurance of message delivery, of non-conflicting messages, of minimum time of delivery, of low cost, and of EMF noise resilience, as well as redundant routing and other characteristics mandate the use of less common networking protocols. Protocols include Controller Area Network (CAN), Local Interconnect Network (LIN) and others. Conventional computer networking technologies are rarely used, except in aircraft, where implementations of the ARINC 664 such as the Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet are used. Aircraft that use AFDX include the B787, the A400M and the A380. Trains commonly use Ethernet Consist Network (ECN). All cars sold in the United States since 1996 are required to have an On-Board Diagnostics connector, for access to the car's electronic controllers.

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NMEA 2000, abbreviated to NMEA2k or N2K and standardized as IEC 61162-3, is a plug-and-play communications standard used for connecting marine sensors and display units within ships and boats. Communication runs at 250 kilobits-per-second and allows any sensor to talk to any display unit or other device compatible with NMEA 2000 protocols.

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Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. is a Japanese electronics company whose main products are marine electronics, including marine radar systems, fish finders, and navigational instruments. The company also manufactures global positioning systems and medical equipment, and entered the weather radar market in 2013.

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Simrad Yachting is a manufacturer of marine electronics for the leisure and professional markets. A member of the Navico family of brands, Simrad Yachting develops, manufactures and distributes navigation systems, autopilots, marine VHF radios, chartplotters, echosounders, radars, fishfinders and a wide range of other marine technology.

Location awareness refers to devices that can passively or actively determine their location. Navigational instruments provide location coordinates for vessels and vehicles. Surveying equipment identifies location with respect to a well-known location wireless communications device.

IEC 61162 is a collection of IEC standards for "Digital interfaces for navigational equipment within a ship".

Samyung ENC is a South Korean manufacturer of marine communication and navigation systems. The company is publicly listed and traded on the KOSDAQ.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Marine bridge system industry valued at US$3.2 billion". Marine Electronics & Communications. June 13, 2016. Archived from the original on 2018-10-17.
  2. "New Nautical Charts released". Navionics. February 10, 2014.