THE NAVIGATION SENSOR SYSTEM INTERFACE PROJECT

The AN/SSN-6 Navigation Sensor System Interface (NavSSI) Project is a new system being designed with two primarv objectives; processing/dist ribution of navigation data and the displav/operation of digital nauti cal charts. NavSSI will be the United States Navv Electronic Chart Dis plav & Information Svstem (ECDIS), meaning naval vessels can navigate using NavSSI for ownship plotting instead of the traditional paper nau tical charts. This paper will present the background on the project an d provide a technical description of the hardware and software archite cture. The Digital Nautical Chart (DNC) database will be described wit h special focus on the technical specifications and the NavSSI operati onal software using DNC. There will be a brief discussion of the legal concerns of using an electronic navigation chart instead of the paper nautical chart. There are still manv kev issues regarding the DNC dat abase to be resolved and these will be presented.