With the deepening of digital waterway construction in the Yangtze River，the electronic channel charts covering the Yangtze River channel have formally external application.It put forward the new requirements on the exchange standard and the communication protocol of waterway data in the Yangtze River.This paper made the planning strategy for the Yangtze River waterway data resources，analyzed the actual demand of the Yangtze River channel information network and designed the corresponding of the Yangtze River waterway data exchange model and communication protocol.In the end，on the basis of the work mentioned above，a test platform for data exchange and communication protocol was developed.It realized some key functions such as real-time data monitoring，terminal protocol analysis and so on.