PROJECT TITLE :

Radiolocation and tracking of automatic identification system signals for maritime situational awareness

ABSTRACT:

The automatic identification system (AIS), a ship reporting system originally designed for collision avoidance, is changing into a cornerstone of maritime situational awareness. The recent increase of terrestrial networks and satellite constellations of receivers is providing world tracking information that enable a large spectrum of applications beyond collision avoidance. Nevertheless, AIS suffers the lack of security measures that makes it vulnerable to receiving positions that are unintentionally incorrect, jammed or deliberately falsified. During this study, the authors' analyse a resolution to the problem of AIS information verification which will be implemented inside a generic networks of ground AIS base stations without needing for additional sensors or technologies. The proposed approach combines a classic radio-localisation method based mostly on time difference of arrival with an extended Kalman filter designed to trace vessels in geodetic coordinates. The approach is validated using anonymised real AIS information collected by multiple base stations that partly share coverage areas. The results show a deviation between the estimated origin of detected signals and the published position knowledge in the order of tons of metres, thus demonstrating the operational potential of the methodology.