Every contact, where it actually is.Amara — augmented maritime awareness for the officer of the watch.
Amara is a see-through headset worn by the officer on watch. It reads the radar, AIS, chart and GPS feeds already fitted to your vessel and draws every contact around you as a label over the sea, at its true bearing.
The ones that transmit arrive with a name. The ones that do not arrive as unknown — detected on radar, never identified, but held in the picture with range and closest point of approach instead of not being there at all.
Two headsets, one router, two days on board.
The moment it is built for
- Coastal approaches thick with small craft carrying no AIS
- Contacts radar can detect but nothing can put a name to
- One officer correlating radar, AIS and chart in their head
- A bridge team that has been getting smaller for a decade
Amara supplements the watch. It is not type approved and does not replace radar, ECDIS or the lookout — the full list of what it does not do is on this page rather than in the small print.
What the officer sees.
Look at a vessel to open it. Change the visibility and watch what happens to the overlay — the answer is nothing, and that is the entire argument for putting it head-up.
Good visibility. The officer can see the traffic and still has to correlate it with radar and chart.
Swipe the view sideways, or pick a contact below.
MSC ODESSA
Risk — act now11 200 m · 6.05 NM · true 068° · relative 356° port- Identity
- MMSI636 019 845
- IMO9702348
- Call signD5AB7
- TypeContainer ship
- Motion
- Speed over ground15.6 kn
- Heading251°
- Course over ground252°
- Position & relative
- Latitude18° 49.8′ N
- Longitude072° 36.9′ E
- Range11 200 m / 6.05 NM
- Relative bearing356° port
- True bearing068°
- Encounter
- Closest point of approach0.08 NM
- Time to CPA11 min 20 s
- EncounterHead-on — both alter to starboard
Representative data on a simulated passage, shown to illustrate the readout. On the bridge the officer opens this by looking at the vessel — hands stay on the conn, eyes stay on the water.
What it takes off the officer
The work that happens between the screens.
Nothing on a modern bridge is missing information. What is missing is the person who has time to assemble it. Amara does the assembling and puts the result where the officer is already looking.
In Indian coastal approaches the non-transmitting contact is not an edge case. It is a large part of the traffic, and it is the part a purely AIS-driven picture leaves out.
Detected, but never identified
A vessel carrying no transponder is a radar return and nothing else. Amara puts that return on the water at its true bearing, marked unknown, with range and closest point of approach — instead of leaving it as a blip to be reconciled off a separate screen.
Three pictures, one head
A single officer combining radar, AIS and chart in their head — at exactly the moment workload peaks: congested water, night, poor visibility.
Head-down time
Every second spent looking down at a console is a second of lost awareness of the water ahead. Amara keeps the picture in the officer's line of sight.
Small bridge teams
On a patrol vessel or a lean-manned merchant ship, the same person is conning, watching and judging an approach. The correlation work lands on one person.
Identity that does not add up
Broadcast identity conflicting with what the sensors observe is flagged, rather than taken at face value.
Where the line actually falls
Boundaries drawn into the view over the water, rather than judged against a chart on a separate screen.
How it is wired
Three parts, all on board.
Amara is a layer over your existing sensors, not a new sensor. The chain starts and ends on the vessel.
Amara reads what the vessel already has. None of this is equipment we sell you.
- Radar Contacts with no transponder
- AIS Cooperating traffic, identity
- Satellite AIS Beyond terrestrial range
- GPS / NavIC Own position and motion
- Chart data Boundaries and depths
- ADS-B Aircraft in the picture
One machine receiving the feeds resolves them into a single contact picture — one vessel per real vessel, not five overlays of the same traffic. It computes range, bearing, closest point of approach and the COLREGs encounter type.
This is an installation, not a download. If the vessel cannot supply a PC on the feeds, that is the first thing to solve.
A see-through visor over local Wi-Fi. The sea stays fully visible; the picture is drawn on top of it at the true bearing of each contact. The officer looks at a vessel to open its detail.
Hands stay free for the conn. Eyes stay on the water rather than on a console.
Your existing feeds
Amara reads what the vessel already has. None of this is equipment we sell you.
- Radar Contacts with no transponder
- AIS Cooperating traffic, identity
- Satellite AIS Beyond terrestrial range
- GPS / NavIC Own position and motion
- Chart data Boundaries and depths
- ADS-B Aircraft in the picture
A PC on board
One machine receiving the feeds resolves them into a single contact picture — one vessel per real vessel, not five overlays of the same traffic. It computes range, bearing, closest point of approach and the COLREGs encounter type.
This is an installation, not a download. If the vessel cannot supply a PC on the feeds, that is the first thing to solve.
The headset on the bridge
A see-through visor over local Wi-Fi. The sea stays fully visible; the picture is drawn on top of it at the true bearing of each contact. The officer looks at a vessel to open its detail.
Hands stay free for the conn. Eyes stay on the water rather than on a console.
Who feels this problem
The officer uses it. You own the consequence.
If your near-miss reports cluster at night and in traffic, you already know the shape of this problem. Find yourself below and we will talk about your class of vessel rather than about headsets.
Commercial ship operators
Marine Superintendent · Fleet Manager · Technical Manager · HSEQ · DPA
Near-miss and collision risk sits on your desk. Lean-manned bridges make it worse, and the officer carries the correlation work alone.
Offshore and energy support
Marine Operations Manager · Vessel Superintendent · OIM
Congested fields and close-quarters work, where the consequence of a misjudged approach is measured in more than a near-miss report.
Pilotage
Chief Pilot · Harbour Master · Pilotage Director
A pilot boards an unfamiliar bridge and has to build the picture in minutes. A headset the pilot brings with them fits that unusually well.
Tug and workboat operators
Operations Manager · Fleet Manager
Dense harbour traffic, small crews and constant close-quarters manoeuvring — the encounter is always developing faster than a console allows.
Maritime training
Principal · Head of Simulation · Nautical Studies lead
Shows a cadet what the officer should be attending to, and when — and gives the instructor a record of what the trainee was not attending to.
Marine systems integrators
Product Manager · Head of Business Development · CTO
You already sell into bridges. Amara is a layer over feeds you have integrated many times before.
Read this before you book anything
What Amara does not do.
Every one of these will come up on the first call. You may as well have them now, and decide whether it is worth the call at all.
It is not type approved
Amara supplements the watch. It does not replace radar, ECDIS or the lookout, and it is not a substitute for any of them under any regulation.
It does not replace bridge equipment
It reads the feeds already fitted. If your vessel does not have the feed, Amara cannot invent it — confirm the specific fit with our technical team rather than assuming it.
It is a fitting, not a download
It requires a PC or server on the vessel receiving the feeds. Factor that into how you plan a trial: someone has to be on board for it.
It does no route planning or reporting
No voyage optimisation, no compliance reporting, no transmission of any kind. It is a situational-awareness layer for the person on watch, and nothing else.
There is no commercial reference yet
Amara is in service on Indian Navy ships. That is the deployment we have, and we will not imply a commercial fleet we do not. The upside of arriving this early is real: an early commercial operator gets to shape what the product becomes.
What a trial actually involves
Two days on board, then a real passage.
- Two headsetsOne for the officer on watch, one for whoever is looking over their shoulder.
- One Wi-Fi routerLocal only. Nothing leaves the vessel and no internet is required.
- A PC receiving the feedsThe one thing we need from you. If the vessel can supply it, the rest is ours.
- Two days to install and trainThen a period of use on a real passage, which is the only honest test of a head-up display.
Amara is in service on Indian Navy ships. The trial fit is the same shape on a merchant bridge, a pilot boat or a tug.
Amara — the questions we always get
No. Amara supplements the watch and does not replace radar, ECDIS or the lookout. We say this early rather than letting it come up late — it is a head-up awareness layer for the officer on watch, not a navigation system, and it should be evaluated as one.
Radar detects them; nothing identifies them. There is no transponder to ask, so Amara will never give you a name, an MMSI or a vessel type for a contact like that, and it does not pretend to. What it does is put the radar return on the water at its true bearing, marked unknown, with range and closest point of approach — so the contact sits in the officer's picture at the position it actually occupies, rather than as a blip they have to look away to read. One limit worth stating: Amara can only show what your radar detects, and a small wooden or FRP craft is a poor radar target.
It reads the feeds already fitted to the vessel — radar, AIS, satellite AIS, GPS/NavIC, chart data and ADS-B. Nothing in that list is equipment we sell you. Which specific feeds and interfaces your class of vessel exposes varies, so confirm the fit with our technical team before assuming a particular installation.
Two days on site to install and train, provided the vessel can supply a PC receiving the feeds. The trial hardware is two headsets and one Wi-Fi router. After that it is a period of use on a real passage, which is the only way anyone forms an honest opinion about a head-up display.
Not yet. Amara is in service on Indian Navy ships, and that is the only deployment we will claim. We would rather say so than imply a commercial fleet we do not have. The practical consequence is that an early commercial operator gets to shape what the product becomes.
No. Amara is receive-only by architecture. Everything is computed on board, nothing leaves the vessel, and it needs no internet connection. That matters for defence and government operators, and it also means Amara does no reporting for anyone who was expecting it to.
Identity (MMSI, IMO number, call sign, vessel type), motion (speed over ground, heading, course over ground), position in latitude and longitude, position relative to own ship (distance in metres and nautical miles, relative bearing, true bearing) and the encounter itself — closest point of approach, time to it, the risk state and the COLREGs encounter type. A bearing ribbon runs across the field of view. The officer opens a contact by looking at it, so their hands stay free.
Tell us about your bridges, not about headsets.
Vessel class, where you trade, and what your near-miss reports say about time of day. That is a fifteen-minute conversation and it is enough for both of us to know whether a trial is worth anyone's two days.