Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) here has been conferred with the ‘Industrial Innovation Award 2021’ instituted by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in the category ‘Top Innovative Research Institutions -2021’ on Friday. The award is in recognition of the development of GAGAN-enabled mariner and instrument for navigation and information (GEMINI) system for dissemination of ocean information services such as potential fishing zones advisories, ocean state forecasts, high wave alerts, tsunami early warning services, etc. to fishermen and seagoing community.
GEMINI system addresses one of the major and critical communication gaps faced by the fishermen community once the seafarers go beyond the communication range of mobiles in the ocean. The very high frequency (VHF) sets also have limited coverage in the ocean and there have been several instances where fishermen venturing into deep-sea fishing have suffered loss of life, injuries, damages to fishing crafts, etc., pointed out INCOIS director T. Srinivasa Kumar.
The Ministry of Earth Sciences institute here at Pragatinagar in association with the Airports Authority of India developed the low-cost GAGAN system-enabled GEMINI receiver that can be used to broadcast the messages as far as 6,000 km in the sea. The in-house developed GEMINI mobile app connects to the GEMINI receiver, decodes, and displays the information in easily understandable format.
“This is a robust satellite based cost-effective dissemination system, and user-friendly data distribution systems in vernacular languages,” he explained, in a press release. INCOIS has been serving its user community including fishermen, Navy, ONGC, shipping industry, researchers, students, etc., during last two decades.
In addition to the GEMINI system, it disseminates the ocean information services through various mediums like telephone/fax, e-mail, web, SMS, local newspapers, local radio, local TV channels, electronic display boards installed at fishing harbours/fish landing centers, IVRS, voice messages, 24x7 help-line system, etc., the release added.
