A review of NAVDAT and VDES as upgrades of maritime communication systems

An actual trend in maritime communications is a need for exchange of increasingly large amounts of information among all maritime entities. For instance, vessels need to exchange data with vessel traffic service (VTS) centers; shipping companies are under huge competition pressure to adopt different weather, routing, monitoring, security and other applications; seafarers expect uninterrupted and sound connectivity with family and friends ashore, and the like. Therefore, for the purpose of broadcast communication between shore and ships – navigational data (NAVDAT) as an extension of navigational telex (NAVTEX) has been developing. Additionally, as an effort to provide route exchange services between ships and VTS centers with the ultimate goal of route optimization through cooperative decision making between the bridge team and shore operators – VHF data exchange system (VDES) as a particular upgrade of automatic identification system (AIS) has been implementing. Both NAVDAT and VDES as novel maritime communication systems have to support dynamic, flexible, scalable, service oriented, very complex and intuitive at the same time, systems-of-systems like maritime communication platform and e-Navigation for the future of navigation.