Development of Ship Navigation Performance System based on Wireless Sensor Nodes

In this paper, a monitoring system of ship navigation performance based on wireless sensor nodes, gateway, measurement instruments is proposed, which could monitor ship position, speed, course, propeller’s speed and shaft power, navigation environment (wind and wave), rudder angle, motion and acceleration. The equipment, composition, implementation, integration and function of this system is introduced in detail. In this system, the signal of longitude and latitude, speed, heading and track angle can be gained from BD DGPS, and the propeller shaft revolution and power are monitored by wireless torque sensor nodes. The relative wind speed and direction, the wave height, the rudder angle and the acceleration of ship are monitored by wireless anemometer sensor nodes, radar wave meter, wireless voltage sensor nodes and wireless accelerometer sensor nodes respectively. The sampling frequency of wireless sensor nodes could be configured according to user’s measurement needs. The system has been applied to continuously monitor the navigation performance of "YUFENG" ship belong to Shanghai YUHAI Shipping Company for one year, in that a large number of measurement data were collected. The results show that the system of ship navigation performance based on wireless sensor nodes has strong reliability and robustness.