A Study on Shipborne Automatic Identification System (AIS)

At present the identification of vessels is still depending on the OOW (Officer Of Wateh) in VTS (Vessel Traffic Service), which is completed by radar, and also by the combination of VHF radio and VHF direction finder. However, with the development of port transportation and economic, this conventional way of identification can't satisfy more and more request for the information that the VTS needs from the vessels. In such a case, the AIS(Automatic Identification System) precept which is based on STDMA (Self-organized Time Division Multiple Access) technique is put forward by IMO (International Maritime Organization). AIS can automatically provide the information, including own ship's identification, type, position, course, speed, and other information to the appropriately equipped coast station and other ships. At the same time it can also automatically monitor and track the nearby ships similarly fitted with AIS. On the basis of describing the whole comprising and the format of transmission information of AIS, this paper mainly studies the key communication techniques in AIS, such as STDMA protocol, net synchronization and GMSK(Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying)technique, and so on. At last this paper briefly introduces the recommendation decided by IMO on forcing the sea-going ships to fixed with AIS equipments, and it continuos with the unexploited potential of AIS if it applies in VTS.