AIS

Overview

AIS is a system that ships use to communicate their positions to each other as part of the global maritime safety system. Since required in December 2004, all ships over 300 tons must carry an AIS system which broadcasts information about the ship to any suitably equipped receiver.

AIS uses very short bursts of high speed data on two VHF channels in the marine band. The two frequencies used are 161.975 (Marine ch 87) and 162.025 (ch 88) MHz. Ships broadcast their identity, position, course, speed and destination so that other ships can take account of their movements.

Also see the MarineTraffic website which plots traffic using AIS

Decoders

Items in bold are known to be compatible with certain SDRs such as the RTL-SDR, either directly or piping audio via applications like Virtual Audio Cable

For other RTL-SDR solutions, see the Big List of RTL-SDR Supported Software. Some of the packages listed here may work with other SDRs

• AIS_Plot
• FreeAIS
• GNU AIS
• gr-ais
• NavMonPC
• MilltechMarine.com - Your AIS Experts on Receivers
• AirNav ShipTrax - AIS Ship Tracker
• DigitalYacht - AISnet base station AIS receiver
• Kinetic AIS-1eR - Marine AIS Receiver/Server & Full Marine Band Radio
• MarineGadget Radar - AIS Receiver - Size of an USB-Stick
• MultiPSK
• OpenCPN
• ORTAC AIS
• PNAis (in French)
• ShipPlotter

AIS Sharing Sites

• AISHub.net - AIS data sharing and vessel tracking

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