Vessel monitoring system : map implementation

Abstract

A vessel monitoring system (VMS) is used by national agencies around the world to detect illegal activities committed by ships and other vessels. A primary component of such a system is a map view that allows the user to see a visual representation of location data, both real time and historical. The data sets used for this representation can become difficult to manage on a large scale and our task was to re-implement the map view component of Trackwell's VMS solution from beginning to end with an innovative mindset, giving us the opportunity to implement new ideas and harness the latest technologies. With this in mind, we set out to implement a stand alone map system that would provide useful artifacts and solutions that could later be integrated by the company. Our focus in implementing this new system was on making it lightweight and scalable for an increasing number of users and expanding data demands. In the end we made great strides in implementing a robust solution that harnessed live streaming technologies such as WebSockets with asynchronous data handling taking top priority, as well as moving all front end code to React, a modern JavaScript framework.