Development of reasonable collision avoidance solution 'Marine Navi' for small vessels
Securing LTE service coverage up to 200km offshore

KT announced on the 25th that it participated in the 'Marine Week 2017' exhibition held at BEXCO in Busan for 4 days starting on the 24th, and unveiled new solutions to minimize maritime safety accidents based on differentiated disaster safety technologies and expertise.

The solutions unveiled by KT are based on expanded maritime LTE coverage: ▲Marine Navi, a vessel safety solution for preventing collision accidents of small ships, and ▲Skyship, a unified maritime surveillance device that combines the advantages of drones and airships.

Marine Navi is an 'integrated collision avoidance solution' based on LTE and intelligent CCTV that displays maritime traffic information and maritime situation video on a single display. Basic navigation information such as location and speed of surrounding vessels collected by the Automatic Identification System (AIS) is fused and analyzed with GPS information by KT's 'Marine Navi Analysis Platform', and displays in real-time on an electronic chart the location of the vessel, distance to surrounding vessels within a 10km radius, and the possibility of collision.

Additionally, Marine Navi utilizes deep learning functionality that collects and learns various ship shapes from CCTV footage. It recognizes and alerts approaching vessels, and even when visibility is impaired due to adverse weather conditions such as sea fog, it reduces interference factors in CCTV footage based on video analysis technology and improves brightness contrast and saturation to provide navigators with clear driving visibility.

KT provides a user interface (UI) that is easy for anyone to understand regarding the information provided by Marine Navi, and when the collision risk analyzed by GPS information and video exceeds the threshold, the system provides advance warning through alarms, so it is expected that collision accidents of small vessels can be dramatically reduced.

Skyship enables stable maritime surveillance for up to 8 hours. This is an improvement over drone flight time and distance. Skyship, jointly developed by KT and small and medium enterprises, is an unmanned airship-type aircraft that combines a helium-filled airframe and propeller propulsion.

With a maximum speed of 70km/h, it can fly up to a maximum of 25km from the operator and for up to 8 hours, and has the advantage that it is unlikely to crash due to its airship form. In particular, unlike drones, Skyship can freely expand the airframe size, allowing it to carry various mission equipment such as medicines and life jackets, and utilizing the 360-degree camera and LTE communication module installed on the body, HD-quality footage captured by KT Skyship can be transmitted in real-time to a mobile surveillance platform or maritime safety control center.

Additionally, Skyship can function as a mobile base station in emergencies, making it possible to position it above disaster areas and quickly secure network coverage in disaster areas, and through the thermal imaging camera mounted on KT Skyship and LED lighting of 90,000 lumens (lighthouse level), it can perform and support not only maritime accidents but also various emergency nighttime search and rescue operations.

Going forward, KT plans to expand the scope of Skyship utilization beyond maritime safety surveillance to include monitoring of illegal fishing vessels, dissemination of warning messages in preparation for disasters, forest fire surveillance, and various other fields.


For LTE-based maritime safety solutions such as Marine Navi and KT Skyship to be operational, securing extensive maritime LTE coverage and stable network operations are essential.

To this end, KT completed the 'Maritime LTE Quality Enhancement' project in September, expanding nationwide LTE service coverage up to a maximum of 200km offshore from land. This is the result of installing an 'ultra-directional antenna array system' developed in July of '16 and high-power LTE base stations at approximately 90 high-altitude relay stations nationwide.

According to KT LTE quality data measured in October, whereas LTE usage was almost non-existent in offshore areas more than 100km away in '15, currently numerous customers are using multimedia and SNS data services through KT's LTE network, and KT explained that maritime LTE coverage is important not only for safety but also from a service perspective.

Seong-mok Oh, President of KT's Network Division, stated "As a national enterprise, KT is striving to provide convenient services to customers and further create a safe Republic of Korea," and added "KT will continue to lead the technology of Korea's public safety communication network through continuous development of innovative technologies."