Unmanned Ship - NVR or VMS that can manage video channels with low bandwidth over Starlink/VSAT internet

[EUnmannedBoats]

HI Guys,

I have am converting a boat (12m work boat) to be used as an autonomous vessel for offshore mapping work - its going to have a operator sat in an office onshore, but IP cameras will be used for navigating / situation awareness. There is a bit more to it than that but our basic challenge is streaming the cameras over low bandwidth.
Bandwidth will be ~500KBPS-2MBPS, ocassionally less. We have a starlink and a LBAND sat system as back up. Most of the work areas are outside of Lte/5G so thats only a back up.

Question: are there any software/NVR that can be setup on the vessel that can work in parrallel with some software in the office (onshore) to manage the various IP Camera channels to optimise bandwidth use?
Ideally on in the office we will be able to view the main front camera in higher res at 2-5 FPS and see the other cameras (sides, engine room, stern..) at thumbnail size, lower FPS. When required the pilot can cycle through the cameras. So that only selected cameras are streamed when requested.

Thanks!

 

[ludshed]

Have you already tested those comm systems at sea? They have some form of stabilization for choppy to holy shit conditions?

 

[EUnmannedBoats]

Have you already tested those comm systems at sea? They have some form of stabilization for choppy to holy shit conditions?

Yeah vsat has gyro stabilisation of the dish. Starlink uses beam forming, so no moving parts required… which is already being used at sea. The boat will return to port if there is a really crappy forecast. It can loiter autonomously if it looses coms

 

[ludshed]

Do you already have software setup in office?

 

[EUnmannedBoats]

Do you already have software setup in office?

No, it’s planned. Nothing is set in stone yet. Others are doing it. Just not much info available on how… particularly the video streaming/compression and remote viewing

 

[ludshed]

I know using smart pss in office, and while it’s frowned upon, using P2P from ship would be fairly easy. I don’t know how easy it would be to set up a more secure way with those internet providers. Last I checked there wasn’t any publicly accessible ports/ways to configure starlink.

 

[EUnmannedBoats]

Thanks, I will take a look at smart pss.
Does it allow you to manage FPS/Res/bitrate easilly?

 

[bp2008]

Starlink should support ipv6 just fine, and since ipv6 has no address shortage, inbound connections should not be a problem as long as you have the knowledge to set it up.

I would avoid any VMS that is going to send the original streams from the cameras directly over the internet to you. Not very bandwidth efficient if you wanted to keep local recordings (on the boat) at high quality and frame rate. Blue Iris re-encodes video streams for remote viewing and composites together multiple cameras into one stream, so that may be ideal for you. Using the web interface UI3, you can easily change streaming parameters on the fly to suit whatever network conditions you have at the moment. Best part is, a Blue Iris license is cheap so if it doesn't meet your needs, you aren't out very much.

 

[looktall]

I feel like this is something that might be best served by a commercial package over a roll your own solution.

 

[EUnmannedBoats]

Starlink should support ipv6 just fine, and since ipv6 has no address shortage, inbound connections should not be a problem as long as you have the knowledge to set it up.

I would avoid any VMS that is going to send the original streams from the cameras directly over the internet to you. Not very bandwidth efficient if you wanted to keep local recordings (on the boat) at high quality and frame rate. Blue Iris re-encodes video streams for remote viewing and composites together multiple cameras into one stream, so that may be ideal for you. Using the web interface UI3, you can easily change streaming parameters on the fly to suit whatever network conditions you have at the moment. Best part is, a Blue Iris license is cheap so if it doesn't meet your needs, you aren't out very much.

I will take a look at this thanks

 

[EUnmannedBoats]

I feel like this is something that might be best served by a commercial package over a roll your own solution.

Ok thanks. You know any specific software?

 

[looktall]

How are you doing your remote operating of the boat?
It seems like something you would use to do that would be commercially available and would likely use cameras for visibility.

They use systems like this to control trains and heaving mining equipment.
Now systems like that would most likely be bespoke in house and cost in the millions but there must be some cut down version that is commercially available.

 

[EUnmannedBoats]

How are you doing your remote operating of the boat?
It seems like something you would use to do that would be commercially available and would likely use cameras for visibility.

They use systems like this to control trains and heaving mining equipment.
Now systems like that would most likely be bespoke in house and cost in the millions but there must be some cut down version that is commercially available.

we are using a off the shelf remote vessel control software/autopilot system. It’s not a coms system or VMS. Yes there are semi bespoke systems being used by offshore oil and gas but they are 2-3k$ per month for what seems like low bandwidth orientated remote vms software. Trying to find a more budget solution for a smaller scale project