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"MICAD" is a brand of real-time marine information system developed by MICAD Marine Systems, LLC of Huntington Beach, California, USA. Originally marketed under the name MICAD Fleet Master System, it is commonly referred to simply as MICAD.

History

MICAD was developed for the commercial and military marine markets to provide decision support capabilities to marine operators based on real-time vessel information. Creation of the MICAD system began in 1998 and the MICAD system was initially introduced to the marine market in 2003. MICAD Marine Systems subsequently introduced "MICAD.NET", a satellite communication module with real-time alarming and web portal access, based on the Iridium satellite network, in October 2003 to allow the transmission of data collected on the vessel to shore for use by shore based management teams.

Marine vessels represent a harsh environment where vibration, corrosion, and electrical interference can cause problems for equipment. The MICAD system was designed for this environment using solid-state components and solid-state flash memory to provide long term storage of collected data. MICAD hardware includes; touchscreen computer monitors, switch controllers, and multi-signal controllers, all manufactured by MICAD Marine Systems in their Huntington Beach, CA factory.

The MICAD software is based on Microsoft Windows and employs a modular architecture that supports a wide variety of configuration options to allow application of the MICAD system to a range of vessel sizes and types including: tugboats, offshore support vessels, commercial fishing vessels, military vessels, bulk cargo and container ships. To support internationalization MICAD uses UNICODE for user-selectable multi-language support and also allows user selection of the most common units of measure and currency formats.

What It Does

The main purpose of the MICAD system is to collect and present information on vessel operations for decision support. To do this MICAD monitors meters, sensors, and ships systems to present vessel operating information to vessel crews and shore based management teams. Areas of vessel operations that benefit most from real-time information for decisions support include:

• Marine Fuel Management – monitor fuel consumption, fuel tank levels, fuel bunkering and transfers to develop a complete picture of how fuel is used by the vessel.

• Maintenance Management – monitor equipment and maintenance schedules for preventative maintenance, condition based monitoring, predictive maintenance, or reliability centered maintenance.

• Ship Pollution Monitoring – monitor ballast tanks and ballast water discharge, exhaust gas emissions, exhaust temperatures, and fuel consumption for reporting and/or controlling emissions to meet MARPOL standards.

• Management Oversight – provide Captains and marine engineers on board the vessel, as well as shore based management teams, timely information, in actionable formats, to support decisions for more efficient and environmentally sound vessel operations.

How It Works

Data is collected from industry standard meters and sensors as inputs to the MICAD system. The types of sensor data that users may require can include such things as: engine RPM, shaft torque, propeller pitch, exhaust gas emissions, various: temperatures, pressures, levels, vibration, wind, current, trim, wave height or other sensor inputs. Meters are used to provide information on liquid movements such as ballast discharge, fuel consumption, fuel transfers, or fuel bunkering, using a variety of flow measurement devices, including positive displacement meters, turbine flow meters, ultrasonic flow meters, mass flow meters or others.

Meter and sensor inputs are connected to MICAD controllers and data monitored in real-time from 4 to 100 times per second. Controllers are connected to the CPU using an Ethernet network. Real-time measurements are time stamped and stored at configurable intervals along with other vessel information such as GPS location, speed, and course. Information is then made available in different formats for real-time display and alarming, graphic displays, historical trending, or reports. Shore-based database servers are used to provide Web portal access to 5-minute snapshot data transmitted via satellite every 15-minutes, or to provide immediate notification of alarm conditions on board the vessel.

For additional data inputs the MICAD software can interface to existing ship systems, such as ECDIS, ballast tank monitoring, lube oil, refrigeration units, Engine Control Modules (ECM), etc., using standard protocols such as CAN-bus, SAE J1939, or NMEA 2000 and also supports the use of CCTV for video surveillance.

See also

• Ballast water discharge and the environment
• Decision support system
• Flow measurement
• Fuel management systems
• Information System
• Marine fuel management
• MARPOL
• NMEA
• SAE International
• Ship pollution