An interactive system for global ship monitoring

The US Navy has more than 300 ships equipped with over 500 PHALANX weapon systems. Ordalts (ordnance alterations) and casreps (casualty reports) are received frequently by Naval Ordnance. Ordalts are done when parts need replacing or a design is exchanged for an old. Casreps are an urgent request for parts or service. Information pertaining to ordalts and casreps is put into several databases, which are continually updated and used in reports among the PHALANX community. Ship locations are used for sending parts and/or assistance to the ship. The ordalt and casrep requests have been combined with the ship locations report to produce a more efficient manner in which to monitor ordalt requests, casrep requests and ship locations, using a sample database containing ordalt and casrep data and ship locations. The database is interfaced to a computer graphics program that monitors ship movement throughout the world and supplies information from the database whenever requested. The hardware and software used to implement the project are described