Our Focus Areas
In R&D the approach and our focus areas are closely linked. We want to achieve our set objectives through a focus on the listed research areas.
Route Prediction
Roughly 90% of the world’s goods are transported by sea. Whether we think of delivering rare metals for battery production, transporting grain deliveries for “Welthungerhilfe,” or vessels carrying important machine parts – sea transport is essential in all sectors. The owners of the goods and other parties involved in the shipping process have a great interest in knowing the exact freight location at any time until delivery. Route forecasting and calculating the Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) is crucial for managing your own logistics chain.
FleetMon has developed its own routing network, enabling us to calculate over 4000 port-to-port relations in real-time. Unpredictable events such as storms, sudden traffic disruptions (e.g., Ever Given), or damaged infrastructure (e.g., accident in the port of Beirut) lead to massive traffic transfers. Together with research partners, we are working on improving the route forecast, including the Estimated Laytime (ELT) and Estimated Time of Departure (ETD), to support logistics companies in optimizing their logistics chain.
Our Route Prediction project has received funding from the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) in the Maritime Technologies department.
Latest Route Prediction Project
Case Study – Forecasting Inland Vessel ETA with Predictive Analytics
The Technical University Berlin conducted a case study in collaboration with the SELECT research project. Students were given the task to develop an arrival time prediction dashboard for inland vessels using AIS data provided by FleetMon.
CO2 Emission
We Do Not Inherit the Earth from Our Ancestors; We Borrow It from Our Children.
Fighting climate change and global warming demands actions in all industrial sectors, not only shipping. But with the shipping industry being an inextricable part of international logistics, it contributes to about 18 percent of some air pollutants. For many decades, HFO (Heavy Fuel Oil) was an inexpensive way of “disposing of” toxins. As a stakeholder of the maritime industry, it is our mission to support GHG reduction and encourage various decarbonization projects.
CO2 emission reduction in shipping begins with a realistic emission calculation which is why FleetMon researches in CO2 emission calculation and ship emission models. We use extremely powerful computing clusters, “digital twin” technologies, and resources of physical and metrological research institutes to investigate shipping emissions on both a local and global scale. Together with our research partners, our goal is to bring our models closer to reality and represent the diversity of shipping. All of our decarbonization projects go hand in hand with our commitment to a greener maritime industry.
Our CO2 Emission project has received funding from the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure as part of the research and innovation program "mFund Modernitätsfonds - digitale Mobilität 4.0".
Our Latest CO2 Emission Related Project
MAREMIS – AI-based calculation of air pollution emitted by ships and its dispersion.
This is an international joint project between Singapore and Germany. In this project, artificial intelligence technology is used to investigate the spread of pollutants from ships in the ports. The results will be used to develop suggestions on how to improve air quality in cities near the ports. The project is supported, among others, by the ministries of transport of the cities and states as well as the port authorities.
Machine Learning and AI
Every day, FleetMon processes hundreds of millions of AIS data records received from several thousand stations. Additionally, we store and process extensive vessel data, schedule information, and thousands of new vessel photos, which our community uploads to the platform every day. No human would be able to view or even evaluate this massive amount of data.
AI is one of the most trending topics in the business sector. With the help of AI technologies, we examine the behavior of ships or research to predict future port calls and optimize shipping routes. We see automation, intelligent algorithms, and AI as the most powerful tools to improve safety and security, increase efficiency and save resources at the same time. Within research projects, we bring in our knowledge from numerous AI projects to drive innovation.
Safety & Security
Every year over 100 ships sink on the seven seas. Besides, there are several marine casualties every day, not to mention thousands of critical situations (see Maritime News). Protecting human life and the environment and securing the safety of goods and ships delivering the freight is a high priority for us. For that reason, FleetMon is passionately involved in projects that promote maritime safety at sea. We are experts in maritime security and work with hundreds of marine safety & security authorities and companies by providing relevant data for their investigations. Together with our research partners, we examine the behavior of ships in extreme situations, optimize sea rescue activities and develop prediction models to prevent incidents or accidents at sea.
Interested in Our Projects?
FleetMon is involved in a variety of research & development projects. Learn more about our latest projects.