Use of the Automatic Identification System (AIS) on Autonomous Weather Buoys for Maritime Domain Awareness Applications

摘要

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is responsible for a wide variety of missions. In order to support the accomplishment of these missions, the USCG needs to collect as much information as possible on activities occurring in the maritime domain. A large part of maritime activity relates to the movement of vessels. Therefore, detection, classification, identification and monitoring of vessels are a key component of what is known as Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA). The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is a technology that is used primarily as a tool for maritime safety. AIS equipment aboard vessels continuously and autonomously transmits information about the vessel including its identity, position, course, and speed. This paper discusses system design of a prototype, autonomous, buoy-based, embedded system for AIS-equipped vessel detection using an AIS receiver and satellite transmitter for near real-time relay of vessel identification data. This paper also describes follow-on enhancements to the system to further extend AIS coverage and field testing of the system.