Towards Smart Ports : Design and Prototyping of an IoT-Based Ship-Generated Oily Waste Collection System

Modern technologies are evolving considerably and are used more and more frequently in a variety of industries. Their functionalities are of general interest, and information on specific use cases is still scarce. On the other hand, environmental issues are complex and traditional approaches revealed their limitations. This situation raises a series of questions on the integration of cutting-edge technologies into traditional environment management systems. Ship-generated oily waste is a hot topic because of the adverse effects it has on the maritime area and its high recoverable value. Following this logic, this study intends to shed light on the specific use of the Internet of Things (IoT) in collecting ship-generated oily wastes from ports. It proceeds through the conception and realisation of an end-to-end prototype based on the three-layer IoT architecture model. The system is based on physical hardware and programming software components. The instructions will help to perform the primary functions of data encapsulation, data exchange, network integration, web page design and information display. The innovative concepts behind this prototype are arranged around the asynchronous web server and the Server-Sent Events. The results adduce evidence of the implementation of IoT technology to an environmental issue of concern. The decision-makers in ports are thus well-informed and prepared to make decisions based on a small-scale system. The first research findings are promising. They indicate the refinement of the process procedures and the avoidance of the slow flow caused by the heavy bureaucracy.