Efficient Vessel Tracking with Accuracy Guarantees

Safety and security are top concerns in maritime navigation, particularly as maritime traffic continues to grow and as crew sizes are reduced. The Automatic Identification System (AIS) plays a key role in regard to these concerns. This system, whose objective is in part to identify and locate vessels, transmits location-related information from vessels to ground stations that are part of a so-called Vessel Traffic Service (VTS), thus enabling these to track the movements of the vessels. This paper presents techniques that improve the existing AIS by offering better and guaranteed tracking accuracies at lower communication costs. The techniques employ movement predictions that are shared between vessels and the VTS. Empirical studies with a prototype implementation and real vessel data demonstrate that the techniques are capable of significantly improving the AIS.