Abstract

This paper describes how the Automatic Identification System - Application Specific Message (AIS/ASM) via Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites can be used to transmit small data between ship and shore to facilitate information visibility in future maritime transport systems. The focus is on ships without advanced satellite terminals in remote areas where terrestrial infrastructure is not available. Here, AIS is proposed as a low cost and general alternative to ordinary satellite communications. In this paper, we report on how reliable ASM is for data exchange, for instance for cargo-monitoring data. One problem is to determine when the LEO satellite is in a geographic position to receive messages from the ship. Another problem is that the AIS satellite can fail to register data, even when in the radio range of the ship, because the ship antenna is constructed for horizontal radiation and sends very little signal upwards, especially when the satellite is at its closest to the ship. The study uses AIS data from the Norwegian Coastal Administration to determine the probability that specific AIS transmitters are detected by the satellites.

Abstract

utomatic Identification System (AIS) is primarily used as a tracking system for ships, but with the launch of satellites to collect these data, new and previously untested possibilities are emerging. This paper presents the development of heuristics for establishing the specific ship type using information retrieved from AIS data alone. These heuristics expand the possibilities of AIS data, as the specific ship type is vital for several transportation research cases, such as emission analyses of ship traffic and studies on slow steaming. The presented method for developing heuristics can be used for a wider range of vessels. These heuristics may form the basis of large-scale studies on ship traffic using AIS data when it is not feasible or desirable to use commercial ship data registers. The Transnav - International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. For licence details please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0 Document type: Article