Marine electronics
Marine electronics refers to electronics devices designed and classed for use in the marine environment where even small drops of salt water will destroy electronics devices. Therefore the majority of these types of devices are either water resistant or waterproof.
The term marine electronics is used for areas such as
Marine electronics devices are
- Chartplotter
- Marine VHF radio
- Autopilot/Self-steering gear
- Fishfinder/Sonar
- Marine radar
- GPS
- Fibre optic gyrocompass
- Satellite television
- Marine fuel management
Communication
The electronics devices communicate by using a protocol defined by NMEA. NMEA has two standards available
NMEA 0183 is based on a serial communication network. NMEA 2000 is a Controller-area network based technology.
In recent years, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has created a new standards suite for "Digital interfaces for navigational equipment within a ship". This is known as IEC 61162 and included NMEA 0183, NMEA 2000 and LWE.
Additionally, different suppliers of marine electronics have their own communications protocol
- A+T Instruments has ESP Ethernet over Ships Power
- B&G has FastNet
- Furuno has NavNet
- Nexus has FDX
- Raymarine has SeaTalk
- Sea~Data has SDML (XML markup language)
- Simrad has SimNet
- Stowe has Dataline
Companies
The international companies selling marine electronics for ships and yachts alphabetically are
- Airmar
- Furuno
- Marine Electronics Center
- Maretron
- Onwa Marine Electronics
- Raymarine Marine Electronics
- Seiwa Marine Electronics
- Simrad in Kongsberg Maritime
- Simrad Yachting in Navico
- Stowe Marine
- Tinley Electronics
Companies developing marine electronics products are
- Egersund Marine Electronics
- Kongsberg Maritime
- Seiwa Marine Electronics
- Navico