dashAlpha Maritime
Resilient Networking and Sustainability for Maritime
dashAlpha Maritime
Resilient Networking & Sustainability for Maritime
To ensure safety, crew welfare and ship operations, it is essential that secure and resilient communications are maintained in all conditions. Yet, small vessels often rely on a single cellular (LTE) or satellite bearer for digital communication. LTE signals can tail off after a few nautical miles, while a satellite link will suffer from high cost, high latency and low bandwidth as well as interference from adverse environmental conditions. As an example, in many cases fishermen operating around the UK coast have patchy mobile coverage and need to wait until they come ashore to inform the local hotels, pubs and markets of their catch updates and receive orders, then return to the boat to sort the catch. This lack of digital communications coverage affects a range of vessels including fishing trawlers, tenders, ferries, pilot boats, utility and recovery vessels, etc.
In line with the Maritime 2050 strategy, the maritime sector is looking toward a future where improved digital communication solutions can serve as the platform to support more reliable ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communication, better crew welfare, richer telemetry capture and more sophisticated data analysis to assist with sustainability.
dashAlpha
dashAlpha addresses this challenge by bonding together multiple LTE (4G, 5G) links into a single secure, high-capacity and fault-tolerant network connection, enabling high-quality and cost-effective Internet access at sea.
dashAlpha also has the ability to add multiple satellite links in multiple orbits (LEO, MEO, GEO) into the bonded connection, leveraging existing and planned space-based communication systems to maintain high-throughput communications while far from shore. dashAlpha can also make use of other surface-based data bearers such as MANET and free-space optics to increase available bandwidth and fault-tolerance.
This capability enables the platform to reliably deliver uninterrupted and high-capacity voice, video and data streams across multiple data bearers. This in turn supports the deployment of more advanced cloud-based data sharing applications such as Dropbox.
Additionally, our platform supports RED/BLACK network segregation, allowing the BLACK network to be used for unclassified purposes such as crew welfare while the RED network can be reserved for sensitive data exchange.
Key Features
Automation & Ease of Use | Our platform uses a high level of automation to minimise set-up time and maintenance, therefore enabling the system to set up in minutes while requiring minimal user training.
Machine Learning | A key differentiator of the platform is its machine-learning driven predictive networking capability. Unlike conventional solutions that simply react to network failures, our platform continuously learns network quality as a deployed router moves between locations. This enables the router to pre-apportion traffic on the aggregated connection as the router approaches an area known to have poor or intermittent signal, ensuring secure and resilient communications in variable network conditions.
Additionally, the platform can optimise operational costs by dynamically prioritising lower-cost terrestrial networks over more expensive satellite links when a vessel is in or near port.
Wireless First | Unlike many traditional networking products, dashAlpha embraces “wireless first” – wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, 5G, 4G and SATCOM are first-class citizens on our platform. The platform continuously monitors the quality of the wireless signal of each bearer and apportions data traffic accordingly, maintaining connection quality, enabling ship’s personnel to maintain essential video calls whilst on the move.
Software First | Our platform’s approach to deployment is “software first”. This gives us the advantage of being able to deploy upon proven Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) based hardware platforms, thereby delivering a far more cost effective and future proofed solution.
d500R Portable Unit
- Integrated cellular & WiFi aerials
- Supports HAIPE-compliant devices
- Up to 14-hours battery runtime
- COTS-based hardware
d500V In-Vessel Certified Unit
- Integrated CAN bus
- Ignition sensing and customizable DIO
- Meets UNECE Reg.10 E-mark
- Meets rolling stock EN50155 standards
System Specifications
| Performance | |
|---|---|
| System Performance | Up to 400Mb/s of AES-256-GCM/SHA384 TLS VPN throughput |
| Power & Charging | |
|---|---|
| Internal Power | Up to three 95Whr batteries (14.4V DC) Up to 14 hours runtime |
| External Power | Requires 15V DC power supply, compliant with USB Power Delivery 2.0 (supplied) |
| Dimensions & Weight | |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 485mm (L) x 392mm (W) x 192mm (D) |
| Weight | 14Kg (30.8 lbs) |
RED NETWORK
| Connectivity (d500R) | |
|---|---|
| Ethernet | 2 x external (PoE+) 2 x internal (PoE+) |
| WiFi | Internal access point supports up to WiFi 5 (802.11ac) 2 x 2 MIMO @ 5GHz |
| USB | 2 x USB 3.0 supports re-keying & firmware update for integrated HAIPE device |
| Security | |
|---|---|
| LAN | Supports 802.1x for device authentication |
| WLAN | Support for WPA 2 Enterprise Supports 802.1x for device authentication |
| WAN | Supports integrated HAIPE device compliant with NCSC Recommended Profile Supports integrated HAIPE device compliant with CAPS up to TS UKEO Supports integrated HAIPE device compliant with NSA Suite B Supports integrated HAIPE device compliant with NSA Suite A |
BLACK NETWORK
| Connectivity (d500R) | |
|---|---|
| Ethernet | 2 x external (PoE+) 2 x internal |
| WiFi | Internal access point supports up to WiFi 5 (802.11ac) 2 x 2 MIMO @ 5GHz |
| Cellular | 4 x internal LTE modem (upgradable to 5G) |
| USB | 2 x internal USB 3.0 supports additional LAN / WLAN / WAN / WWAN connectivity via dongles |
| GPS | Integrated GPS module supports location-based services & geo-fencing |
| Security | |
|---|---|
| LAN | Supports 802.1x for device authentication |
| WLAN | Support for WPA 2 Enterprise Supports 802.1x for device authentication |
| WAN | Up to nine bonded TLS 1.3 VPN tunnels Tunnels authenticated with 521-bit ECC certificates & encrypted with AES-256-GCM Compliant with (and stronger than) NCSC Recommended Profiles for TLS 1.3 |