NMEA

Back to:	CIRM Knowledge Base
Page completeness level:	Low

General Info

The National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) produce some standards that are in very common usage for transferring data between navigation equipment/bridge systems.

There are currently two main NMEA data standards: NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000.

The most common standard for commercial vessels is NMEA 0183.

NMEA 0183 uses RS422 by default and this has lead to there being an additional variant of NMEA 0183 to adapt it for use on an IP Network.

This data communication is not normally secure other than by being physically disconnected from outside networks and is a potential vulnerability for operating technology (OT) networks on a ship. This is not just the bridge, it is very common for navigational data, as NMEA messages, to be sent down to the ECR. On ships such as cruise vessels this data can be sent to passenger infotainment systems, such as an on TV location map of the vessels position.