Posted on February 5, 2019
The Port of Rotterdam is ready to go with its Internet of Things (IoT) platform, with the announcement that the first application for a hydro/meteo has been put into operation.
The system uses an extensive network of sensors to provide accurate and up-to-date water (hydro) and weather (meteo) data particularly for the planning and management of shipping. Construction of the IoT platform was announced a year ago by collaborating partners IBM, Cisco, Esri and Axians, and has now been delivered under the Port Authority’s direction.
The generic building blocks that have now been implemented offer the port a safe and reliable basis for rapid innovation, with access to the latest technologies, including edge computing, real-time analytics, artificial intelligence, hyper-precise data and blockchain. This lays the foundation to facilitate autonomous shipping in the Port of Rotterdam in the future.
The proof of the pudding of the IoT platform was the completion of the hydro/meteo application, which obtains height of tide, tidal stream, salinity, wind speed, wind direction and visibility data via a combination of 44 sensors in the port, many prediction models, data from Rijkswaterstaat and astronomical calculations. It is the first time that the generic IoT platform was used for a mission-critical application. This also needed to satisfy the highest safety, reliability and standardisation requirements.
This data will be analysed by IBM’s cloud-based IoT technologies and turned into information. The port authorities can use this information to make decisions that can reduce wait times, manage traffic more efficiently, decide best time for ship docking, load and unload among other advantages.
“It’s a fantastic step in development of Rotterdam as ‘smartest port’. Just as important, however, is that the cloud platform and the generated real-time information, which includes infrastructure, water and weather condition data, enable us to further improve mission-critical processes in the service to our clients,” said Ronald Paul, Port of Rotterdam Authority chief operating officer.
Source: IoT News
