El Centro de Información Marítima de Bélgica vigila las costas con Barco

Desde la sala de control, MIK ensures the security of the territorial waters. For this, a videowall has been installed configured with OverView screens and the OpSpace software.

Belgium has a relatively short coastline (65 kilometers) and despite that it is mainly a maritime nation, with a lot of traffic passing through its territorial waters. The Maritime Information Center (Maritiem Informatie Kruispunt – MIK) in Zeebrugge is responsible for the security of its territorial waters. A task that requires state-of-the-art and extremely reliable monitoring solutions.

MIK has entrusted Barco OpSpace to monitor and operate from the crisis coordination room.
El Mar del Norte es una de las principales formas de transporte comercial económico de Bélgica con dos puertos principales: Amberes (que es el segundo más grande de Europa) y Zeebrugge (el más importante para el manejo de automóviles).

MIK monitorea y controla la zona económica exclusiva belga (Belgian Exclusive Economic Zone – ZEE) completa, que no solo implica el tráfico marítimo que pasa por las aguas, sino también los intereses económicos nacionales (incluido un gran parque eólico) y reservas naturales. Besides, vigila los barcos que navegan bajo bandera belga, que es la 16 flota más grande del mundo.

“La rama operativa de la guardia costera belga se divide entre MIK y el Centro de Rescate y Coordinación Marítima (MRCC) en Ostende. Desde el MIK, apoyamos tanto al MSA (Maritime situational awareness) such as at the MSO (Maritime security operations). Our mission is to collect, process and distribute information to Coast Guard partners, and support their functions with a focus on maritime security”, explains Thierry Timmerman from MIK.

The critical infrastructure control room at MIK is operational 24/7. When an abnormal situation occurs, the crisis room is activated.

To visualize the crisis, MIK has a large videowall configured with Barco OverView and to control its operating systems it uses OpSpace, the digital workspace software solution for control room operators.

OpSpace also allows MIK staff to select the correct common operational picture to send to the OverView videowall. Besides, with just one keyboard and mouse, content from different operational sources can be selected and worked with. The information needed to resolve the crisis can be available in the crisis room without losing time.

“The number of active sources is efficiently managed to include only the relevant information needed to resolve the crisis. Since there are several teams available (both military and civilian), access to information is strictly controlled by linking it to company credentials. According to login credentials and their access levels, OpSpace sabe qué fuentes operativas deben estar disponibles para un usuario específico. In the past, necesitábamos trabajar con varias computadoras, cada una con su propio teclado y mouse. Now, controlamos todas las aplicaciones con un teclado y un mouse, que es mucho más eficiente”, continúa Thierry.