IO, Surabaya – In an effort to improve maritime safety, Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS) Surabaya, working through its startup PT ITS Tekno Sains collaborates with PT Bali Towerindo Sentra Tbk in creating what it has called the Automatic Identification System Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (AISITS).
The product was officially launched alongside the new Data Center and Central Monitoring Room in the PT Bali Towerindo Sentra Tbk office in Jakarta on Wednesday (17/10) by Minister of Research, Technology and Higher Education (Menristekdikti) Mohamad Nasir. The launch was also attended by Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi, Special Taskforce for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities (SKK Migas) Vice Chairman Sukandar and Director General of Maritime Transportation Agus H. Purnomo.
AISITS was first conceived of as the result of a damaged maritime installation, one which created large losses, including a fire in Semayang Port, Balikpapan Strait, East Kalimantan.
The fire, which occurred in late March 2018, was caused by a broken oil pipe owned by PT Pertamina (Persero), which was thought to be caused by a collision with a ship anchor, rupturing and resulting in an oil spill and an eventual fire.
ITS Rector Prof Ir Joni Hermana M. Sc ES PhD stated that ITS was one of the only higher education institutes that had a high-caliber science, technology and innovation center, and as such had the responsibility to perpetually push the results of its academic research into yielding innovative products that can help the people directly and possess commercial potential. He added that as of now, the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education entrusted ITS to manage the three Centers of Excellence in Science and Technology (PUI): the Automotive Control System (SKO), Mechanics Industrial Automation (MIA), and Ship and Maritime Installation Safety (KEKAL). “PUI KEKAL was created by the Kemenristekdikti in 2008, and through this ITS PUI KEKAL the AISITS products have been developed and manufactured,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the ITS Vice-Rector IV, who is also a part of the research and development team of AISITS, Prof Dr Ketut Buda Artana, ST Msc explained that AISITS is a result of continuous research and innovation with funding support from the Kemenristekdikti. “The AISITS application uses both static and dynamic ship data,” he explained.
The data is then used to help ensure the operational safety of ships and maritime installations, giving real-time early warning based through the internet and its mobile application. AISITS can send an early warning when ships enter dangerous zones in order to prevent them from colliding, protecting underwater pipes from external objects (such as anchors), protect offshore structures from the danger of ship collisions, monitor fuel and emissions and determine the level of operational risk of the ship; it can also be used as a foundation for a port management and traffic information system.
“AISITS uses simple technology, the use of data which is sent to a ship through radio waves and then processes that data using a logic solver for a number of applications joined inside the system,” explained the Kobe University, Japan PhD graduate.
The availability of AISITS is important in helping maintain deep sea maritime installation safety. Among these are underwater pipes, offshore platforms, and submarine communication cables. Maritime installation is one of the priorities of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources as they are vital in helping the national’s economic growth.
The Newcastle University, England Masters graduate also stated that Indonesia, as an archipelago, needs ships as a means of transportation and goods distribution which is one of Indonesia’s advantages in the maritime world. “AISITS can be a solution for those needs, making the availability of AISITS very important in bolstering the general duties and functions (tupoksi) of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT), and SKK Migas,” he asserted.
According to Ketut, AISITS, which was launched as a commercial product, can also be used directly by people, government or any company which works in maritime. ITS and PT Bali Towerindo Sentra Tbk, which are integrated tower and network infrastructure providers, have signed a joint operation to try and get AISITS to be used by people and industries through the preparation of tower infrastructure and the automatic identification system along the beaches of North Java. In the first step of the joint operation, a central maritime monitoring room will be built to overwatch ship safety, underwater pipes and submarine communication cables and offshore platforms.
“Remembering that this AISITS system will record a variety of ship movement data every 10 seconds, the joint operation will also prepare a data center and big data which will then be a source of various information after being analyzed, to be shared on web-based applications and mobile phone AISITS,” he stated.
Looking back on the journey of AISITS as a first-class product which is ready for implementation, Ketut says that AISITS was first initiated and developed in 2007 through cooperation research between ITS and Kobe University, Osaka University, Tokyo University, National Maritime Research Institute (NMRI) Japan, University of Technology Malaysia (UTM), Dokus Eylul University Turkey, and others. The research and development process took a long time and working with other parties helped AISITS become ready for commercialization.
On the same occasion, Ministry of Transportation Budi Karya fully supported the product which was created by ITS as an attempt to help shipping safety in Indonesia. “In the future, we can also integrate AISITS into the Indonesian Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla)”, he said.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education Mohamad Nasir also stated that this commercialization of AISITS is in line with the ministry’s mission to increase the capacity of utilization and commercialization of research and innovation results which are useful for the people and development of the nation. This mission is one of the foundations of universities, including ITS, to attempt to push researchers, inventors, and businesses so they are capable of producing creating innovative products which can be used by the people and industrial sectors. “In this Industry 4.0 era, applications such as these hold a very important role and have a big business potential,” said Nasir.
At the same time, AISITS can help ensure maritime safety and grow the economy in general. Ship and maritime installation accidents will have a large impact on humans, the environment and economy. AISITS is one of the alternative solutions to these problems.
In the launching, a joint operation (KSO) for the Data Center between ITS Tekno Sains and PT Bali Towerindo Sentra was signed alongside a Letter of Intent between ITS and the Maritime Transport Directorate General, ITS with PT Pertamina Engineering Services, PT Krakatau Bandar Samudera, PT Padma Energy Indonesia and PT Palka Sarana Utama. (ITS)