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Welcome to the documentation for keelson

NOTE: Keelson is in the early phases of development and will undergo significant changes before reaching v1.0. Be aware!

keelson is a start towards an open maritime API specification designed for building distributed maritime applications on top of the Zenoh communication protocol (1). It is provided as free and open-source software under the Apache 2.0 License.

  1. In order to ease the introduction to keelson, make sure you are aquainted with zenoh. The following are some good resources:

What is a keelson?

A keelson is a longitudinal structure running above and fastened to the keel of a ship to strengthen its framework. keelson, the software, serves as the flexible and performant backbone for maritime data.

What keelson offers

In short, to assist in developing distributed applications on top of zenoh, keelson has opinions and requirements about:

  • The format of the key used when publishing data to zenoh
  • The format of the data published to zenoh
  • The format of the key used when declaring a queryable (i.e. RPC endpoint) in zenoh
  • The format of the requests and responses exchanged via a queryable (i.e. RPC endpoint) in zenoh

For details about requirements on formats and message types, see the protocol specification.

Why use keelson?

sketch

Usage at RISE Maritime

keelson serves as RISE Maritime’s backbone for structuring a wide range of microservices, enabling the development of robust platforms for diverse maritime applications. Whether it’s a logging server, unmanned surface vehicle control system, remote control center, or any other maritime-related system, keelson's modular architecture allows for flexible integration and scalability.

sketch

Most of what we do at RISE Maritime becomes open source software. Have a look at RISE Maritime's GitHub page to explor various connectors, processors and other tools built using keelson.