The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard will collaborate to develop a marine safety information test bed in Kentucky as part of efforts to advance riverine, coastal and intracoastal navigation in the country.
The city of Louisville will host the Ohio River Enhanced Marine Safety Information Test Bed, which will include bulletins that contain navigational and weather information, the Coast Guard said Tuesday.
The new system will also cover additional information on bridge clearances, hazardous cargoes, lock status, safety and security zones collected from various government agencies and compiled into a single bulletin transmitted to nearby vessels.
USACE’s research and development center will team up with the Coast Guard’s office of navigation systems and research and development center teams to manage the test bed, which will also feature an autonomous and continuous broadcast system designed to transmit enhanced marine safety information messages to vessels around Louisville.
The Coast Guard added the test bed will help determine necessary equipment and infrastructure for the modernization of U.S. waterways and aid the discovery of methods to integrate the Automatic Identification System into the existing marine safety information and Aids to Navigation systems.
