Volpe Center: Volpe Center Highlights

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Volpe Center Highlights - January 2000

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Volpe Begins Navigation Work on Central America Reconstruction Project (RSPA)

A team from the Center for Navigation (Messrs. Andrew Caporale, Kam Chin, Hector Masmela, David Phinney, and Henry Wychorski) was in Honduras from December 8 to 17, 1999, to begin fieldwork for the Central America Reconstruction Project. The project, commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will provide recovery and reconstruction assistance to the region, which is still suffering from the effects of damage caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Photo : Center for Navigation team in Honduras
(left to right) Kam Chin, RSPA Administrator Kelley S. Coyner, Hector Masmela, Andrew Caporale, DOT Secretary Rodney E. Slater, Oscar Delgado (Project Engineer), Liana de Cáceres (former Executive Secretary of COCATRAM), David Phinney, Henry Wychorski

Through the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA), the Volpe Center will design and establish advanced navigation systems in Honduran and Nicaraguan ports where navigation facilities were destroyed. In the spirit of sustainable restoration, the new systems will use modern technology based on Differential Global Positioning Systems (DGPS). The new systems will replace traditional visual navigation aids such as buoys, and provide accurate vessel tracking and navigation in harbors and waterways.

The Volpe Center was the logical choice to develop the new systems. The Center for Navigation made history when a commercial vessel was tracked for the first time in the St. Lawrence Seaway using the GPS system that it developed. Recently, the Center for Navigation installed a DGPS system in Panama with the assistance of the Panama Canal Commission and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). This system consists of 120 mobile units that communicate with a control center via a shore-based communications network. The mobile units consist of a GPS receiver and antenna, a laptop computer, and another radio antenna for communications with the control center.

Photo : towers used for AM radio antennae
A parcel of land adjacent to the port of Cortés site. The towers in the photo are used for AM radio antennae and are similar to the towers that will be used for the radio beacon transmitters.

During this initial visit to Honduras, the Volpe Center team met with officials from ENP (Empresa Nacional Portuaria), the Honduran national port authority, to review the DGPS-based navigation system design and to select two radio beacon transmitter sites. A third site in Nicaragua, which will serve two separate ports, has yet to be decided. In conjunction with ENP, the Volpe team selected the ports of Cortés and San Lorenzo in Honduras as transmitter sites, and traveled to meet with port officials and harbor pilots to discuss project elements, obtain user requirements, and demonstrate applications of DGPS-based navigation. Volpe engineers now are working with ENP engineers to finalize the design and to begin construction of the two transmitter sites.

During the trip, the team also met with representatives from COCATRAM (Comisión Centroamericana de Transporte Marítimo) to discuss the establishment of a Notice to Mariners system for the ports of Central America. This system, which will be coordinated by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), will provide a database of updated information to marine pilots on navigational aids in place in the ports.

In addition, the Volpe Center team provided technical and logistical support to DOT Secretary Rodney E. Slater and RSPA Administrator Kelley S. Coyner during their visit to Honduras on December 13, 1999, as part of a Transportation and Trade Mission to Central American and Caribbean countries.

Map of Honduras showing the ports of Cortés and San Lorenzo

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