Kongsberg Maritime trials Eutelsat OneWeb’s LEO satellite internet service for ASKO’s autonomous barge.

Telenor Maritime, a Norwegian telecommunications provider and ASKO a grocery distributor, have collaborated to equip AKSO’s zero-emission, electric barge with Eutelsat OneWeb’s latest Kymeta Peregrine u8 flat panel antenna system for the duration of the trial. This will allow Kongsberg Maritime to experience LEO connectivity for real-time data transfer, ship-to-shore communication, and remote and autonomous vessel control.

The battery-powered ASKO barge, one of a pair delivered in 2022, transporting up to 16 trailers of cargo on each journey across the Oslo Fjord, reduces road travel by two million kilometers and cuts carbon emissions by 5000 tons annually.

The barge will be controlled from a Remote Operations Centre (ROC) operated by Massterly (a Kongsberg Wilhelmsen joint venture), located in Horten.

🎤 Pål Andrè Eriksen, Senior Vice President, Remote & Autonomous solutions, at Kongsberg Maritime, said: “Seamless connectivity remains one of the key challenges for remote and autonomous operations, particularly in the open oceans. Overcoming the challenges of global connectivity and available bandwidth will unlock great potential for the deployment to of such technologies in future, and we look forward to working with Eutelsat OneWeb and Telenor Maritime. 

We’re grateful to ASKO for allowing us to install OneWeb’s latest antenna technology on one of their vessels, which will provide a realistic operating environment to comprehensively demonstrate the low latency, high throughput capabilities of Eutelsat OneWeb’s low Earth orbit satellite service.”

🎤 Alexandra Kenworthy, Director Maritime & Energy, Eutelsat OneWeb, said: “Our work with Telenor Maritime and Kongsberg Maritime plays a key role in demonstrating the new, enhanced, and secure capabilities that high-speed low Earth orbit connectivity brings to maritime operators all over the world.” 

🎤 Knut Fjellheim, CTIO, Telenor Maritime said: “This project is incredibly important for the future of autonomous vessels, not only in local fjords and rivers, but also in open ocean waters. With OneWeb’s LEO coverage and our advanced connectivity platform, we’re on the cusp of achieving 100% uptime for ship connectivity.”

Both of the ASKO vessels, also known as sea drones, have a permanent bridge for manual operation, and can also be controlled from the ROC in Horten. However, once the autonomous concept is proven the bridge will be omitted in future builds.

📃📷 Source : Kongsberg Maritime