Designing AIS Link based on Software Defined Radio for LEO Satellites

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) was developed by the International Maritime organisation (IMO) in order to improve the safety of navigation. However, AIS devices allow identification of vessels in the vicinity within a limited range (15-20 nautical miles). Therefore, a space-based AIS system is used nowadays as a relay to shore stations with a higher range of detection. In this paper, an AIS radio link design based on software defined radio between vessels in Moroccan territorial sea and a specific ground station in Rabat is proposed. The AIS data is received by satellite via a highly integrated software defined radio (SDR) over very high frequency (VHF) channels and downloaded to the ground station via a S-band transceiver as a data communication subsystem. This paper focuses on the preliminary process of designing an optimum link for the space-based AIS system.