TRIES: TERANGI Ecomooring Systems

Idea

On March 4th, 2017, a 4,290 tons cruise ship, The Caledonian Sky, crashed to the coral reefs of Raja Ampat, Indonesia. Causing massive destruction to a pristine ecosystem and a 6 billion Rupiahs (around 422 million USD) of international lawsuit. While it is the most noticeable, this type of maritime incidents is actually quite common in coral reefs around the world. Aside from crashing incidents, reckless anchoring also become one of the main cause of coral reefs degradation. The main cause for this navigation issue is the lack of safe moorings areas, coral reefs area maps, and low precision navigation system.

That is why we propose TRIES: TERANGI EcoMooring System. It is a mooring system which include a fixed less destructive anchor, an artificial reefs, a smart/regular buoys, a cloud platform, and a webGIS interface for navigation. Each artificial reefs will be anchored using helix anchors. The number of anchors needed will be based on the size of the artificial reefs and the target buoy ship capacity. The artificial reefs will act as a weight for ships and habitat for marine organisms. It will also help to increase coral cover and improve ecosystem health.

Figure 1. Schematic representation of TRIES: TERANGI EcoMooring System

Figure 2. Schematic diagram of the anchor system

Figure 3. Schematic diagram of the artificial reefs

Figure 4. Sample output from buoy locations as training data, to create benthic habitat map.

Figure 5. Sample interface for monitoring sea surface temperature from buoys.

Figure 6. Sample interface of webGIS for navigation

Figure 7. Schematic diagram of sensors in the smart buoy

In the cloud platform, we will use the location of each buoy as training data for benthic habitat mapping using machine learning. We will use the API of Google Earth Engine and Sentinel 2, MODIS AQUA, and LANDSAT 8 OLI images. The webGIS will consume the data from GEE and provide benthic habitat maps and the location of the buoy for safer navigation. 

We plan to create 3 business model, which are:

1. Free to use webGIS for navigation. The target market is boat owners or captains, fishermen, and tourism operator.
2. Purchase and service of TRIES installation. Each TRIES installation will start from 500 USD for regular buoys, and 700 USD for smart buoys. The target market NGOs, local communities, dive resorts, port management, and other related entities.
3. Project integration and rebranding, where TRIES installation is customized according to the user needs, and specialized dashboard for tracking and analysis. The target market are reef restoration projects, industries, and NGOs.

EU GNSS technologies (Galileo)

There are two main services from EU GNSS technologies used. Which are Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) and the High-Accuracy Service (HAS). These services will be included in the smart buoys and the webGIS.

There will be two types of buoys, the smart buoys and the regular buoys. The smart buoys will use HAS and OSNMA automatically built using Internet of Things and GNSS sensor, and the regular buoys will require an app to input the location data and have HAS and OSNMA built within it. With HAS, buoys will be able to be tracked and monitored properly. This will provide higher accuracy for navigation and training data for machine learning. OSNMA especially will be included in the webGIS interface to help ships to get better navigation in coral reefs area, thus reducing the probability for crashing and grounding of coral reefs ecosystem.

Team 

We are a team of three, which include:

Malika Felizia Kiswandi

Malika is a marine science specialist, that will focus on the development of artificial reefs structure and using IOT to develop smart buoys.

Muhammad Aldi Asriadi

Aldi is a GIS specialist, and in this project he will focus on the development of webGIS interface and IOT to develop smart buoys.

Safran Yusri

Safran is a data scientist. He will develop the cloud platform and perform analysis of location and oceanographic data with machine learning.