Commercial Marine Navigation Standards

Robert A. Leonards, Myron S. Novak

Abstract:	In 1979 the International Electrotechnical Commission formed a new group, Technical Committee 80, to address Navigation Instrument Standards. With the active participation of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG), standards for Automatic Radar Plotting Aid (ARPA) and for Shipborne RADAR have recently been developed and are involved in or have just completed "the six month nation voting stage." The group is presently developing standards for "Speed and Distance Measuring Equipment," "OMEGA/Differential OMEGA" an.d "General Requirements Including Environmental Conditions." Proposals for new work under consideration by the U.S. group includes "Electronic Charting" and "Integrated Navigation Systems." For civil marine application, both areas are becoming increasingly realizable by the advent of Global Positioning System (Navstar GPS) and by the availability of low cost computers and memories. This short paper, essentially non-technical, will describe some domestic and international bodies currently issuing navigation related standards and their products. (These products are often overlapping and may sometimes be perceived as conflicting.) It will highlight significant features of the IEC's standards currently being developed. It will examine the problems, even for voluntary commitment, for nations voting for international standards that may contain specifics not as stringent as their own domestic rules. Finally, after depicting forthcoming new navigation instrument standards work, the paper will note how interested companies and public activities may become involved with the TAG in the development of standards. The paper should be of value to interested groups that include merchant and fishing ship owners and corporations who may desire to increase efficiency and productivity through acquisition of navigation instruments containing emerging technology. These instruments should be both cost effective and compliant with developing standards. Equally interested are competing navigation instrument manufacturers who desire to stay abreast of new standards and particularly of proposed testing methods to demonstrate conformance of their products.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1986) June 24 - 26, 1986 Seattle, Washington
Pages:	13 - 16
Cite this article:	Leonards, Robert A., Novak, Myron S., "Commercial Marine Navigation Standards," Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (1986), Seattle, Washington, June 1986, pp. 13-16.
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