Page 50: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 2001)

Electronics Update

AIS: The Future is Now

The IMO deadline for fitting new ships with Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) is less than one year away. After

July 1, 2002, all newbuilds over 300 grt must be equipped with an approved AIS transponder system. Leica Geosystems, one of the pioneering companies in AIS technology, recently published a 28- page book ("A Complete Guide to Auto- matic Identification Systems") that is loaded with useful information on AIS technology, how it works, international standards and carriage requirements.

At the Worshipping exhibition in Oslo,

Leica unveiled the first fully integrated

GPS/DGPS/AIS shipboard system meet- ing all IMO, IEC and ITU equipment specifications. The following extracts are reprinted with permission from

Leica Geosystems.

What is AIS?

AIS is a shipboard broadcast transpon- der system in which ships continually transmit their ID, position, course, speed and other data to all other nearby ships and shoreside authorities on a common

VHF radio channel. AIS is designed to operate in one of the following modes:

In a ship-to-ship mode for collision avoidance

As a means for coastal states to obtain information about a ship and its cargo

As a traffic management tool when integrated with a Vessel Traffic System (VTS)

The primary operating mode for AIS will be autonomous ship-to-ship report- ing. In this mode, each ship transmits its data to all other AlS-equipped ships within VHF range. The unique commu- nications scheme permits these data transmissions to take place independent- ly without the need for a master control station.

Position and other data are fed auto- matically from the ship's sensors into the

AIS system, where the data is formatted and transmitted in a short data burst on a dedicated VHF channel. When received on the other ships, the data is decoded and displayed for the officer of the watch, who can view AIS reports from all other AlS-equipped ships within range in graphic and text format. The

AIS data may optionally be fed to the ship's integrated navigation systems and radar plotting systems to provide AIS "tags" for radar targets. The AIS data can also be logged to the ship's Voyage

Data Recorder (VDR) for playback and future analysis.

In coastal waters, shoreside authorities may establish automated AIS stations to monitor the movement of vessels through the area. These stations may simply monitor AIS transmissions from passing ships, or may actively poll ves-

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