Internet of Things on the High Seas

In the beginning of March I travelled to Gibraltar to board a LNG tanker. My task was installation of temperature sensors in the engine room so that key parameters could be monitored remotely, via satellite link wherever the ship is sailing.

A LNG tanker is a tanker for Liquid Natural Gas, the fossil fuel of the future. Not only is LNG a key ingredient in industrial processes and an important energy source - new regulations are also helping LNG becoming an important fuel for ships in order to reduce the pollution profile of international shipping.

On a LNG tanker the cargo is also used as fuel for propulsion. Although the cargo is kept liquid at the boiling point of the gas (-161 degrees Celsius), there is always some liquid that turns into gas, and this gas is used for energy production. The alternative could be to have separate fuel and use energy to convert the gas back to liquid, but that is both more complicated and more expensive.

Anyway, the development of LNG based propulsion in general and LNG tankers in particular is eager to understand how the energy in the gas is converted to useful work or wasted as heat. Traditional installation of temperature sensors rely on electrical wring. This can be both costly and time consuming. Therefore wireless technology can be very interesting, but a wireless sensor network can meet significant technical challenges deep inside a metal ship.

But the installation was successful - everything worked (and works) fine. In addition to making the temperatures available remotely, the information is also available in the vessel’s control room. This way it will no longer be needed for a member of the crew to walk around to take readings at each sensor.

The "Internet of Things" (IoT) is a popular technology topic nowadays. Many hobbyists are experimenting with instrumenting their homes, semiconductor companies are developing new and better components, and traditional industry are joining the IoT bandwagon. Compared to the popular image of IoT the size of the sensor and the transmitter in the picture may seem bulky. But this equipment is meant for an industrialized environment with high temperatures and vibration, so good packaging certainly seems to be a good idea!

Eldhuset

Ascensio  tend to come on a Thursday(!), and that makes it easy to take the Friday off for an extended weekend. So the excuse for a boys on tour was there for the taking. This time we aimed for the Håøya island in the Oslo fjord.     


Håøya is interesting in many respects:

• largest island in the Oslo fjord
• unique plant life
• White-tailed eagles nested there this year, for the first time in a very long time
• part of the Oscarsborg Fortress until modern times

So we hired a cabin from the local recreational council and took the boat from Oslo harbor in beautiful weather.

I was there on a school camp when I was a kid, and coming back brought back memories. As with other parts of the Norwegian countryside Håøya is also suffering from the absence of cows, goats and sheep. They used to keep the landscapes open, but now every nice view is disappearing in shrubbery and forest.

But at Håøya they are trying to do something about it. A goat farmer brought his herd to the island to manage the vegetation, and produce goat cheese. We were too early to enjoy the cheese, but maybe next year!

Parking @ OSL -- fraudulent practices?

So you want to travel via OSL, the Oslo airport called Gardermoen. Well beware! You may stumble into the fraudulent practices of the parking company there.

Last week I was traveling again, but I wanted to reach a meeting shortly after my return on Thursday. So I took my car and I planned to park within walking distance of the airport. But early in the morning of Monday 7, January the only parking lots that were open was one far away with a bus connection and the expensive parking house. When I checked the web during the weekend there was no mention of this. So what to do? The bus would jeopardise my chances of reaching the meeting. So I had to use the parking house, even though I could see that many of the other lots were almost empty.

If information about this had been available in advance I would have planned differently, but the willingness to help travelers this way is not a priority when you can rip them off instead. I ended up paying more than 150% more than the expected price.

In my mind this way of ensuring income is very bad. They could have made an effort to help customers avoid this with information on their web page.

So if you really want to ride a bus when you travel via OSL check out Parking @ Gardermoen. The one to suspect of bad information is Euro Park. On the other hand, there is an excellent train service as well as long distance buses.

OSL - a disgusting airport

On Monday I travelled to Germany via Oslo Airport Gardermoen (OSL). Early in the morning I had some time to waste before my flight, so I walked around window shopping. One of the shops there is an electronics shop, and just outside the shop someone had been sick and vomitted on the floor. The weird thing was that nothing was done about the vomit on the floor except putting up a barely readable note to warn people passing by (the footstool came later).

From the angle I approached the store I nearly didn't see the notice, and I saw at least one other person loosing their footing on the wet floor. As far as I could see the person managed to stay on her feet, but ruining her clothes and possible physical injury was close. So why wasn't any attempt done to dry up the vomit from the floor.

I approached some staff at another shop nearby, and they told me they had offered the staff at the electronics shop to call the cleaning department. But this offer was rejected. When I expressed my concern to them, they made the call anyway. But nothing happend. From the first time I consulted my clock the first time to the last time I was within range of the vomit, more than 20 minutes passed without anything happening.

I like to think that if I were working in the electronics shop I would have started drying up myself - wouldn't any responsible person do that? I would claim that both the guys at the electronics shop and the resources responsible for keeping the airport clean have demonstrated that they should find something else to do.