by Paul Rudo on 26/04/12 at 9:35 pm The Automatic Identification
System is a major component of vessel traffic services and
assists the use of marine radar in identifying maritime dangers
for ships and submarines at sea. As we will see, AIS tools are
also used for navigation, AIS applications are used to provide
information related to the position, course and speed of a ship
as well as tracking movements of vessels which are delivering
commercial shipments. All passenger ships and any ship traveling
internationally carrying more than 300 tons is required to be
equipped with an AIS ship tracking device. How AIS works An AIS
configuration consists of a VHF transmitter, two VHF TDMA
receivers, a VHF DSC receiver. These devices provide vessel
information and voyage information, including MMSI numbers, IMO
number, registration, navigation status, rate of turn, position
accuracy, longitude, time stamp and ship dimensions. A ship
transmit this information in 26.6 millisecond messages to an AIS
station at the same ti