Project background
A ship company specializes on marine cargo transportation and renting out vessels. So, they needed the solution for fuel monitoring out of GSM coverage to keep an eye on boats, that are into oil and gas field operations across Nigeria.
The fleet runs on diesel fuel and vessels are equipped with large tanks. Frequent trips on the high seas and insufficient fuel consumption control led to regular fuel thefts and tangible losses for the company. Moreover, maritime transport renters also insist on accurate fuel data transfer, since the pricing transparency is highly important when paying for vessels rent.
Challenges
It was necessary to set up a comprehensive fuel monitoring and control the entire journey map from refueling to engine supply:
- To count the filled diesel into each of the two tanks using Coriolis flowmeters
- To control fuel consumption on the main and auxiliary motors
- To count engine hours and operating time under load
- To track the location and vessels speed
- To show online the fuel remaining in each tank
Solution
HyperComs’ specialists opted for Base Block Iridium devices, as they provide two communication options: data transmission through Iridium network, when the vessel is out of GSM coverage, and sending more information to Wialon server in case of stable GSM signal. Moreover, a unique Easy Logic script was developed in order to integrate Coriolis flowmeters working on Modbus protocol. Mechatronics Eurosens FLS and differential flowmeters were used in the project as additional equipment as well.
The system works as follows:
- The amount of fuel filled in tanks is recorded into the system.
- Both the fuel lines and the fuel backflow lines are equipped with special sensors to monitor fuel consumption of all engines
- Specialists connected to generators, which are driven by motors to record engines operating time. Thus, if a pulse from the generator does not come, then the engine is turned off.
- Vessel location data is sent regularly via Iridium channel. Any transmission period can be configured. For example, twice a day. So that, owner knows where each unit of the fleet is located and at the same time does not overpay for sending coordinates to the server too often.
- The speed of the boat is monitored by GPS
Devices
Base Block Iridium
Data transmission via Iridium satellite communication with 100% worldwide coverage.
