High reliability PC based Marine Computer for Voyage Data Recorder

Maritime legislation has substantially driven the proliferation of voyage data recorders (VDRs) into sea faring vessels. Initially in passenger ships but in greater quantities in cargo ships above specific tonnages and is likely to cascade down to smaller ships in time. VDRs are the aerospace equivalent of the “Black Box” recorder that captures all the critical data of a trip. Because of their critical nature they have to be highly reliable whilst operating a very hostile environment. These where the critical drivers for one of the world leading VDR manufacturer to select Captec to design and supply the marine computer for their VDR based on industrial pc technologies and protected against the hostilities of the operating environment.

At the heart of a VDR needs to be a highly compact and reliable embedded pc.  Failure on the high seas has serious consequences in servicing logistics and costs, but more seriously on the interruption of critical recording.  Captec were selected because of their specialist knowledge and expertise in designing and manufacturing a high reliability computer for marine hostile environments for the heart of the VDR.

The marine environment is very hostile, requiring a diversity of protection methodologies to counter the various challenges.  Key to the through life reliability of the marine computer are protection against shock, vibration, power interference, ingress protection, thermal extremes amongst a multitude of other lesser ones.  Key to addressing these challenges were Captec engineering team’s knowledge and experience in the selection of best value MTBF COTS industrial pc component selection coupled with COTS+ additional engineered protection.  The final Captec industrial pc solution comprised a highly compact microbox pc based on low power Intel Pentium M Celeron processor.  To cater for the capture of all the data streams in the VDR application, in addition to multi USB ports, extended connectivity of  LAN ports was achieved through PC/104 module expansion.  The power supply was custom designed to cater for the interference and fluctuation commonly found in marine applications. The hard drive storage module was based on a 2.5” industrial drive with custom-designed additional shock and anti-vibration shock mounts, tuned to dampen the key resonant frequencies.  In addition to appropriate component selection, Thermal optimisation was engineered in to ensure cold start operating range of -30 to +60Deg C.

VDR Maritime applications mandates EN60945 compliance which calls for rigorous testing of the equipment to certify that it is fit for purpose in the marine environment.  Captec’s specialist compliance team, who live and breathe compliance standards every day, were actively involved throughout the design stages to ensure the industrial computer solution was in keeping with all the EN60945 requirements at every step.  This resulted in no surprises at the compliance testing stage and reduced end to end costs.

As a Microsoft Embedded Partner, Captec’s technical team assisted the customer throughout the implementation of the embedded XP image.  The image was created by componetising the necessary XP OS services and drivers, coupled with the VDR application in the creation of a master controlled image.  This resulted in a high reliability embedded pc based application.

To date Captec have supplied quantities in excess of 4 digits, currently in the 1000’s, of marine industrial computers at the heart of VDRs operating reliably in ships all over the world.

A world where industrial computers can operate reliably in any environment for the benefit of mankind

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