Norwegian maritime operator Wilhelmsen has partnered with Dutch LoRaWAN IoT specialist The Things Industries (TTI) and has selected Californian firm Semtech’s LoRa devices as the foundation for its new global 2.4GHz maritime IoT network to deliver an ecosystem of cost-effective IoT solutions for a diverse global customer base on both land and sea.

Wilhelmsen is planning to meet a surge in maritime shipping growth, with forecast CAGR of 16.82% between 2019-2024. With this expected market growth, Wilhelmsen is deploying the new LoRa-based connectivity in its own operations to improve efficiencies and offer its customers connected IoT solutions. Wilhelmsen serves 20,000 vessels out of 2,200 ports in some 70 countries and handles more than 220,000 product deliveries per year.

Wilhelmsen chose TTI to develop its IoT platform which allows Wilhelmsen to tap into an existing global ecosystem of vendors and service providers, providing access to a marketplace of certified sensors, hardware designers, systems integrators, and application developers.

“We have evaluated wireless solutions for decades to deliver efficiencies at land and sea. The technology solution of choice needed key capabilities to revolutionise our strategy – long range, low power and a strong, open ecosystem,” said Jon Helge Ulstein, Senior Project Manager at Wilhelmsen. “This new system is expected to benefit our customers immediately and is a step towards autonomous vessels and industry 4.0. Spearheaded by Wilhelmsen’s ship management division, this new IoT platform will be utilised to deliver, among other things, digital condition monitoring, asset tracking and logistical applications. This goes hand in hand with the group’s on-board app store project, ShipOS, headed by RaaLabs.”