Norway-based Dualog has signed a long-term Industrial Research and Development project agreement with Japanese shipping giant NYK, to develop digital products and services across a testbed of 50 vessels with a view to eventually rolling out the new technologies across the company’s owned fleet of 250 ships.
The accord follows on from an existing strategic partnership signed by the companies in the summer of 2017, which focused on the development of automation, Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data technologies.
The new project, named ‘Cepa Shield’, will bring together research and development teams from Dualog and NYK Group’s in-house R&D company MTI (Monohakobi Technology Institute), who will work together to improve efficiency in the way systems between ship and shore talk to one another, both in-house and with third-party managers and technology providers.
In addition to improving the digital capabilities of NYK’s vessels, the project’s development work, which is scheduled to last until the end of 2021, will also provide Dualog with new services to add to its own portfolio that can be offered to the rest of the shipping industry.
“What we will be achieving is controlling communication at a new level, regarding protocols and security, but also in the way we will integrate different communications equipment on board ship,” said Morten Lind-Olsen, CEO of Dualog.
“We will also look at the way we want to dynamically control the bandwidth so we can undertake traffic shaping between different services.”
The partnership agreement has been financially supported by Innovation Norway, a Norwegian Government agency.
