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VICKSBURG, Miss. - Low water\, shoaling or missing buoys can cause hazardous conditions along our nation’s waterways\, putting ships and crews at risk. Even the smallest disruptions in navigation can have catastrophic consequences for supply chains and the movement of essential goods across the country\, impacting the economy. To help mitigate these hazards and strengthen gaps in broadcast coverage\, researchers at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) are using deployable mobile trailers to ensure that critical messages can be transmitted to vessel traffic.
The U.S. economy relies heavily on our nation’s waterways for trade, agriculture and manufacturing. For more than 15 years, ERDC has provided the Lock Operations Management Application (LOMA) to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers districts and divisions, helping ensure transport traffic along these waters can move safely, reliably and efficiently with minimal impact to the economy or environment. Today, ERDC is expanding that capability.
LOMA is a real-time situational awareness and tracking network used to monitor commercial river traffic and manage navigation locks. The program maintains a network of shore sites that receive automatic identification system (AIS) broadcasts from vessels, and in turn, broadcasts out safety messages via the same radio protocols.
The majority of these transmission spots are located at USACE-owned lock and dam sites. However, because of the current distribution of the sites, there are gaps in AIS coverage and broadcast abilities.
“The LOMA network of shore sites includes over 170 permanent sites,” said Dr. Marin Kress, a research physical scientist with ERDC’s Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory. “These locations span many rivers — we have over 25 waterways with equipment — but because the inland waterway network is so large, even with that high number of sites, we still don't have 100% coverage.”
To reduce this deficit, ERDC researchers are using rapidly deployable mobile trailers to enhance or expand LOMA capabilities in the absence of permanent receivers or in areas of challenging terrain. In situations where AIS broadcast and reception is needed but unavailable, the trailer-mounted system can act as a shore site to receive and broadcast AIS messages.
“The LOMA trailers serve a critical role,” said Kress. “We can literally drive a trailer to a spot, park it, extend the radio tower and fire up the system. That lets us expand our coverage temporarily where we need it — especially in emergency situations.”
Effectively, what began as a tool to help lock operators see approaching traffic has grown into a broader capability supporting traffic management, maintenance planning and navigation safety.
Most recently, ERDC researchers used LOMA mobile trailers to keep hazardous waterways open along the Mississippi River at Lake Providence, Louisiana and Hickman, Kentucky.
In 2024, the LOMA program received a request from the USACE Vicksburg District to deploy a trailer to Lake Providence Port in Louisiana to broadcast virtual aids to navigation, or VATONs, marking newly identified shoals affecting the navigation channel.
Shoaling is the buildup of sand or sediment in a waterway that reduces water depth, often creating hidden hazards for vessels or ships. VATONs can be used to mark this threat and warn approaching vessels of the unsafe conditions.
During the six-month deployment from September 2024 to March 2025, more than 3,800 vessels moved through the area, transporting over $16 billion in commercial goods.
“This is a really good illustration of how the inland system is so important to the American economy and how a relatively small investment in something like a LOMA trailer can provide big benefits to the navigation industry,” said Kress.
In Hickman, Kentucky, officials were considering shutting down river traffic due to dangerous rock formations capable of slicing open the bottom of a barge combined with falling river levels and missing channel buoys which couldn’t be immediately replaced.
The USACE Memphis District reached out to ERDC and requested the deployment of a LOMA trailer to the area to broadcast VATONs, warning vessels of the hazard and allowing river traffic to continue, while giving the U.S. Coast Guard ample time to replace the missing buoys.
“Our technicians are extremely dedicated,” said Kress. “At Hickman, we needed the equipment to be in place before a certain critical water level was reached. There was a lot of coordination with the Coast Guard and the Memphis District.”
With the success of these deployments, the LOMA team is looking to expand their mobile capability.
“Right now, we have three trailers, and they're all deployed in different field locations,” said Kress. “We have a couple of others that are waiting to be retrofitted, and that would increase our fleet size and increase our ability to deploy them.”
An increase in the mobile fleet is part of the future vision for the program as it would help to expand LOMA coverage across the entire waterways system allowing for the broadcast of safety information as well as other river information services that can be used to improve navigation.
“We want to keep delivering better products,” said Kress. “To keep changing the game and improving the system for everyone on the water.”
| Date Taken: | 07.21.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 07.21.2026 16:26 |
| Story ID: | 570440 |
| Location: | VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI, US |
| Web Views: | 19 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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