Many national and international programmes are currently in place to provide regular weather forecasts and emergency messaging to fishermen in the coastal areas. Information about certain types of fish concentration in deep sea can be captured through satellite images and communicated to fishermen. However, the current system of information dissemination is manual and time consuming. The fishermen are required to go to their nearest post along the coast to collect information on large fish concentrations in their area of interest. There is no mechanism to deliver this information directly to the fishing vessels. Further, as the pattern of fish concentration changes over time, the same is difficult to communicate in real time to fishermen in deep sea. The weather warnings are provided through radio broadcast which are mostly local. The system does not deliver such information to fishing vessels directly while in deep sea.

ASL Advanced Systems Private Limited has developed SeaGuide 2401 using GPS - a satellite based navigation system for effective marine navigation. The SeaGuide 2401 is rugged enough to withstand the hostile marine conditions and enhances productivity and safety at sea. It knows where the user is, memorizes the important points to navigate, remembers the home ports, saves the fuel, and reduces the time taken to reach a place. There is a need to improve system of distress reporting and providing relief in deep sea through two-way communication.

ASL is currently developing GPS assisted GIS enabled Tracking System (G2TS) for the safety of fishermen. It will have a communication interface with SeaGuide 2401 to enable arrive at new location of fish concentration using Sea surface Temperature (SST) and pass information on weather data and warning on reaching closer to the International Boundary/ Exclusive Economic Zone. It will also have GIS enabled application for tracking the registered fishing vessels over the geographical area of interest. The application will have provision to store vessel data, visualize vessel location data in the background of map and send alerts.

Possible Technical Track: Marine navigation