Furuno Electric Announces Technical Presentation on 'Phizmo' Ocean Condition Prediction System at the 1st GI Society Academic Conference

Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. (hereinafter 'the Company') conducted a technical presentation on its newly launched ocean condition prediction system, 'Phizmo,' under the theme of 'Ocean Condition Prediction as Water Environment Information Supporting Green Infrastructure,' at the 1st GI (Green Infrastructure) Society Academic Conference held in Hitoyoshi City, Kumamoto Prefecture, on May 30-31, 2026. The presentation showcased the technology's capability not only to grasp current sea conditions but also to predict future changes with high resolution, along with its potential applications.

Background of the Initiative To date, the Company has contributed to understanding the marine environment by capturing data on underwater conditions, which are difficult to visualize, through ultrasonic technologies such as fish finders and sonars. In recent years, alongside the management of the marine environment and sustainable use of marine resources, there is an increasing need for decision-making that accounts for future changes in the operation of green infrastructure involving water areas. Meanwhile, general ocean condition data often has limited spatial and temporal resolution, which may not suffice as a detailed basis for judgment in coastal or local sea areas. Against this backdrop, the Company is continuously improving the functionality of 'Phizmo,' an ocean condition prediction system that forecasts future changes with high precision.

Presentation Content 'Historical Data Reconstruction' and 'Future Prediction' of the Marine Environment This presentation introduced technology that reconstructs and predicts the marine environment in 3D, utilizing public data such as meteorological and sea condition data, satellite sea surface temperature, and satellite sea surface height, based on a regional ocean circulation model. A key feature of 'Phizmo' is its ability to grasp multiple elements including water temperature, current velocity (horizontal/vertical), salinity, and sea surface height, including in the depth direction. It supports both the reconstruction of past data and future prediction. Furthermore, the system employs assimilation technology that integrates simulation results with actual observational data. Specifically, it combines multiple data assimilation methods (NMC method, 3D variational method, and nudging) and automatically optimizes algorithm parameters for each sea area to achieve flexible resolution settings and high-precision prediction tailored to the intended use. As an example, a comparison was conducted with commonly used ocean condition data using current direction and velocity data off the coast of Kanto. The results showed that while general data typically has a horizontal resolution of 10km and a temporal resolution of 24 hours, 'Phizmo' can generate data with a horizontal resolution of 3km and a temporal resolution of 1 hour, enabling the grasp of detailed marine phenomena such as branch currents and eddies, in addition to large-scale flows like the Kuroshio and Oyashio currents. Regarding water temperature prediction in the East China Sea, a comparison of 'Phizmo' predictions against current satellite observational data showed a distribution closer to actual observations compared to general data, confirming the compatibility of high precision and high resolution.

Comments Beyond technology that captures current sea conditions, the ability to forecast changes will become increasingly important for future marine use and environmental conservation. Especially in coastal areas, fluctuations in weather and tidal currents significantly impact the environment and industrial activities, requiring judgments that take short-term, local changes into account. By predicting sea conditions such as water temperature, flow, and salinity with high resolution, we aim to visualize these complex environmental changes and provide foundational information to support the understanding of previously elusive phenomena and facilitate more refined decision-making. We will continue to advance the research and deployment of this technology as an extension of our 'seeing the unseen' capabilities, aiming to create value that allows us to look ahead at the future ocean and be utilized as highly practical information in various marine-related settings.

System Development Section, Yuri Murakami