新技术助力常规船只畅行凶险北极航线

    8月初，2.1万吨级运输船永盛号从位于中国东北的大连港起航，向欧洲进发。但不走穿越马六甲海峡，横跨印度洋至苏伊士运河和欧洲以外市场的向南路线，前往鹿特丹的永盛号转向东北，朝着阿拉斯加和北极圈航行。它是中国第一艘尝试东北航道(Northeast Passage)的商业货轮。东北航道是一条围绕欧亚大陆北部航行的捷径，可以将中国到欧洲（中国最大的出口市场）的航行时间缩短整整两个星期。

    气候变暖和冰盖融化每年都在延长北极航道的开放期，由此创造了一扇长达三至四个月的时间窗口——在这段时间，传统船舶也能够畅行于北极圈的冰流和冰山之间。但一如横穿加拿大北部冰冷水域，世人期待已久的西北航道(Northwest Passage)对于船舶，特别是那些缺乏没有使用防冰增强和加固船体的船舶来说，东北航道依然是一个暗藏杀机的凶险地带。对于希望在东北航道运营的商业利益实体（主要是石油和天然气勘探公司和商业运货商）而言，冰盖融化其实是一把双刃剑，在允许传统船只进入北极的同时，也让这里成为一个更加危险的运营地带，因为冰流和其他潜在危险变得更加难以预测。

    几年前，国防承包商雷神公司(Raytheon)开始研发一套全新的北极导航系统。借助这套系统，未使用防冰加固的传统船体可以在北极航行，但不是通过加固船体，也不是更好的破冰船，而是通过更好的信息和态势感知能力。通过融合越来越多的数据来源（从往昔的卫星和声纳技术，到下一代技术体系，比如无人驾驶飞机和潜水机器人），这家公司为一个伤脑筋的硬件问题创造了一套机敏的软件解决方案，从而让未使用防冰加固的传统船体凭借精确数据航行于北极地带。急于扩充自身北极航行能力的美国海军已经运用这项技术引导一艘未加固船体的传统舰艇在北极成功航行了30天。随着日益升高的平均气温继续开拓海上通道，雷神北极监测和预测系统(RAMP)有望为商业航运业打开曾经无法逾越的北极航道之门。全球商业航运业每年通过海洋运输价值逾4万亿美元的货物。

    “那里的最大挑战之一是保持对冰山和冰流的警惕，”雷神公司创新和原型设计团队项目经理蒂姆•拉格林说。“我们发现，就连一些所谓的‘无冰’水域其实也名不副实，那实际上意味着这些水域基本上没有冰，但依然有冰山和其他的冰风险存在。所以，提高态势感知能力至关重要，除非你打算不惜资金，百般周折地重新设计，使用防冰加固的大量船只。这是一种非常节约成本的改善北极航行能力的方式。”

    船只之所以在北极缺乏态势感知能力，是北极自身固有的一些问题所导致的。覆盖北极的通信和测绘卫星相对较少，甚至基本没有，所以船舶导航器能够获取的信息非常少，而且也缺乏发送或接受信息的手段。同样，由于在北极航行的船只非常少，船只之间共享的航行信息也少之又少。在某种程度上，北极是一个数据沙漠，任由导航器在这个世界上最无情的水域上几近盲目地领航。

    In early August, the 21,000-ton shipping vessel Yong Sheng pulled out of the northeastern Chinese port of Dalian bound for Europe. But instead of setting a southerly course that would take the ship through the Strait of Malacca and across the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal and European markets beyond, the Rotterdam-bound Yong Sheng turned northeast, toward Alaska and the Arctic Circle. It is the first Chinese commercial cargo ship to attempt the Northeast Passage, a short-cut that runs north around the Eurasian continent, shaving as much as two weeks off the journey from China to Europe, China's largest export market.

    A warming climate and melting ice sheets are opening up Arctic sea lanes for longer and longer periods each year, creating a three- to four-month window in which conventional ships can operate amid the ice flows and icebergs above the Arctic Circle. But the Northeast Passage, like the long-sought Northwest Passage across the icy waters north of Canada, remains a treacherous place for ships to operate, especially those lacking ice-hardened, reinforced hulls. For the commercial interests that want to operate there -- primarily oil and gas exploration companies and commercial shippers -- all that melting ice represents something of a double-edged sword, allowing conventional vessels into the Arctic while at the same time making it a more dangerous place to operate as ice flows and other potential hazards become less predictable.

    A few years ago, defense contractor Raytheon (RTN) began developing a new Arctic navigation system that allows conventional, non-ice-hardened ships to operate in the Arctic not through reinforced hulls or better icebreakers, but through better information and enhanced situational awareness. By merging data from an increasing number of sources ranging from legacy technologies like satellites and sonar to next-generation systems like unmanned aircraft and submersible underwater robots, the company has created a tidy software solution to a vexing hardware problem -- a means to navigate the Arctic with precision in a conventional, non-ice-hardened hull. The U.S. Navy, eager to expand its own Arctic capabilities, has already taken the technology for a successful 30-day spin through the Arctic in a conventional, non-reinforced vessel. And as higher average temperatures continue to open up sea lanes, the Raytheon Arctic Monitoring and Prediction (RAMP) system could potentially open the once-impassible Arctic to a commercial shipping industry that moves more than $4 trillion worth of cargo over the ocean every year.

    "One of the biggest challenges up there is maintaining vigilance with respect to ice and ice flows," says Tim Raglin, program manager for Raytheon's innovation and prototyping team. "Even in waters that termed 'ice free,' we discovered that that's a misnomer--that actually means they're mostly free of ice, that there's still icebergs and other ice hazards in the water. So there's a critical need for situational awareness up there, and unless you're going to go to the expense and effort to redesign and ice- harden a number of ships, this is a very cost-effective way of enabling Arctic operations."

    The lack of situational awareness in the Arctic stems from several problems inherent in the Arctic itself. There are relatively few satellites -- communications, mapping, or otherwise -- covering the Arctic, so there's very little information for ship navigators to access as well as limited means to transmit or receive it. Likewise, since there are so few ships operating there there's little anecdotal information shared between vessels. The Arctic is something of a data desert, leaving navigators to pilot blindly in some of the world's most unforgiving waters.