The Port of Barcelona began the ‘5G Maritime’ pilot test in July, a project that aims to validate the location of ships in real time and with great precision, obtaining image data that complements the information from the current geolocation systems of the port (AIS and radar geoposition system). The pilot is based on a pioneering technological solution that combines artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing with edge computing technology and ultra-fast, low-latency communications with a commercial 5G network.
Around 9,000 ships dock at the Port of Barcelona a year. They are boats of very diverse characteristics and sizes, even reaching 400 meters in length (approximately twice the length of a football field). Having very precise and real-time information on their movements and geolocation is essential not only to optimize the docking space of the port, but also to offer maximum security to ships and port services when carrying out movements.
Optimize traffic management
‘5G Maritime’ arises with the aim of helping the Port of Barcelona to optimize the management of maritime traffic, improving safety and sustainability thanks to complete information on ships, their situation and the actions of the different port services. It is a project framed within the 5G Barcelona initiative and promoted by the Port of Barcelona, IBM, Vodafone, Huawei, Mobile World Capital Barcelona and Fundació i2CAT, with the support of the Department of Digital Policies of the Generalitat de Catalunya within the framework of Catalonia’s 5G Strategy.
The technological solution allows obtaining fore and aft geopositioning and ship movement indicator with high precision, facilitating remote assistance to navigation. The port pilot will be able to accurately estimate valuable information for the entry and berthing operations of vessels in the port, such as the location of several ships navigating the docks of the Port of Barcelona, the course or even the speed of the ship itself, all based on the analysis of video from 5G cameras installed around the port area.
Pioneering pilot test
Eduard Martín, director of the 5G Program of Mobile World Capital Barcelona and CEO of 5G Barcelona, pointed out that “this is a pioneering pilot test in the field of logistics in which the application of 5G in port environments will facilitate the improvement and automation of processes and will increase the safety and efficiency of these operations ”.
For his part, Marc Estapé, director of IBM Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, commented that “the combination of artificial intelligence with Edge Computing and cloud technologies in an ultra-fast communications environment makes this pilot test a pioneer in the industry, which It puts us on the path of obtaining a high degree of precision in the recognition of port images with the consequent increase in optimization “, says Marc Estapé, director of IBM Catalunya”.
Technical deployment
The technological solution consists of an artificial intelligence model created by IBM and trained in the IBM Cloud to recognize ships, as well as their bows and stern; two Huawei cameras located in the port, which capture the entry of ships in real time; and ultra-fast, low-latency communications provided by Vodafone’s commercial 5G network that transmit the images to the server, where the AI model is run on the received images, which recognizes and interprets them.
The artificial intelligence model is distributed to a server located in the port control tower using edge computing technologies. Subsequently, a geolocation algorithm translates the pixels of the images into geographic coordinates of latitude and longitude. Finally, these geolocation data are integrated with the rest of the Port’s systems. The result is that the Port of Barcelona obtains more accurate information, and also in real time, on the location of the ships.
