Inmarsat, ABB Pact on IoT Platform

British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat plc and the provider of electric, digital and connected solutions for the marine industry ABB Marine & Ports have signed a master supply agreement aimed at tackling an obstacle identified by ship owners which has stopped them using IoT (Internet of Things) technology.

A recent 2018 Inmarsat survey of 125 owners found 51% identifying an inability to get data off ships in real-time as their obstacle to IoT adoption.

The agreement recognises ABB as a certified application provider to work with Fleet Data, the IoT platform developed by Inmarsat and Danelec Marine which collects information from onboard sensors, pre-processes it, and uploads it to a secure cloud-based database.

The new Certified Application Provider (CAP) agreement means analytics, monitoring and decision-support software, developed by ABB Marine & Ports to benchmark fleet performance as well as enhance ship efficiency and safety, can seamlessly integrate with a database via the Fleet Data Application Programming Interface (API).

“As respective leaders in the field of mobile satellite communications and marine power, control and automation technologies, Inmarsat and ABB combine connectivity and enabling applications at a scale that can be truly transformative,” said Stefano Poli, Vice President Business Development, Inmarsat Maritime.

“This deal provides further evidence of the power of Fleet Data to rise to the challenge. As a digital enabler, Fleet Data can support a myriad of applications so it is no coincidence that Inmarsat has signed agreements with digital technology majors as well as start-ups intending to shake up the industry,” he said. “Both groups recognize that developing a digital culture is about downloading and updating, not expensive ship visits and installation time.”

With many years of experience in creating value from the data it collects, ABB’s electric, digital and connected solutions for the maritime industry are bringing new levels of reliability, efficiency and sustainability to shipping. A first candidate to exploit the bandwidth available for Fleet Data in the merchant shipping space is expected to be the ABB vessel management software ABB Ability™ Marine Advisory System – OCTOPUS.

“Collaborative operations that put our cumulative engineering knowledge, leading-edge products and remote support at the disposal of those at sea and ashore are core to the ABB Marine & Ports Service offering across a wide range of vessel types,” said Antto Shemeikka, Vice President Digital Services ABB Marine & Ports. “We see the potential for faster digitization enabled by continuously evolving connectivity.”