An Integrated Vessel Tracking System by Using AIS, Inmarsat and China Beidou Navigation Satellite System

As there are more and more Automatic Identification System (AIS) sets have been deployed onboard, it is getting easier for people to trace vessels. Today, many online vessel monitoring services have been developed; however, most of them are based on AIS information. Because the coverage limitation of VHF frequency, which the AIS set works on, is normally no more than 25 nautical miles, so these systems can not track vessels when they are beyond the coverage of the shore-based AIS station. In order to track ves-sels in all sea areas, we developed a comprehensive vessel tracking system, namely ManyShips, which inte-grates AIS, Inmarsat and China Beidou navigation satellite system. The running result of the system shows that the Beidou satellite system can track vessels within Asian-Pacific region while the Inmarsat-C station polling service can help people tracking vessels within sea area A3.