Implementing Automatic Identification System Transmitter on Software Defined Radio

This paper presents an implementation of an AIS transmitter that broadcasts position reports with varying GPS longitude and latitude data. The AIS is primarily used for collision avoidance by regularly broadcasting the vessel’s information such as position, speed, course, and other safety-related information. In this study, the researchers have implemented transmission of position reports using an SDR. The transmitted position information follows the physical and data link layer set by the international standard. This ensures that the data transmitted can be properly demodulated by existing and commercially available AIS devices. A handheld GPS is used to verify the position data transmitted by the SDR transmitter, whose GPS information to be transmitted is obtained from a GPS receiver installed on the SDR transmitter. GNU Radio is used to interface with the SDR transmitter. An SDR-based AIS receiver is used to decode the transmitted position report and validate the integrity of the transmitted data. Based on the results, the designed transmitter can precisely broadcast the GPS location of the device itself, verified by comparing the decoded AIS packet from the SDR receiver alongside the respective GPS location reading of the handheld GPS.