Marine Electronics
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exactEarth Ltd, a provider of a satellite based vessel Automatic Identification System (S-AIS) service, has secured two agreements with government maritime agencies. These evaluation agreements will allow these agencies to determine the reliability and vessel coverage capabilities of the AIS data feeds broadcast from a microsatellite that exactEarth will launch this summer.
The trial programs, which are expected to prelude long term subscriptions, are gaining momentum. According to exactEarth, it now has a total of five countries that have either already signed on for its satellite AIS program or completed trials based on exactEarth’s NTS nanosatellite.
Peter Mabson, President of exactEarth noted that its customers so far have been receptive to the trial program, “Our trial program has proven to be an attractive option for customers who wish to evaluate our premier space-based AIS service for a relatively small financial commitment as they take any steps necessary to secure budgetary funding.” He also indicated that exactEarth was in advanced discussions with other countries and expects to announce additional trial agreements in the near future.
exactEarth, which is the data services subsidiary of COM DEV International Ltd, a leading space and satellite communications hardware company, developed the space AIS system because of the need for more reliable vessel location information over a wider region. Present VHF based AIS systems, which are installed on over 70,000 vessels worldwide, are only able to detect vessels within a 50 nautical mile region and are not considered reliable when communication channels become crowded. Often when too many vessels in close proximity transmit AIS signals, the signals collide. The end result is that AIS data is not transmitted and the actual vessel location is lost.
The exactEarth satellite system, when finally in place, will consist of several polar microsatellites that overcome the present day distance and reliability issues. These satellites will circle the globe from north to south, over the poles, scanning AIS VHF signals from thousands of vessels every few minutes. Not only collecting an immense database of real time vessel information, but also doing so with a much higher reliability rate.
Because these microsatellites fly in a relatively low orbit, and incorporate sophisticated receiver technology they will be able to pick up the VHF frequencies that AIS vessels transmit. This data once received will be encrypted and sent back to earth stations, where it will then be stored, processed and sorted and made available to vessels that have subscribed to the S-AIS service.
What is unique about the satellite service besides allowing for thousands of vessels to be tracked over a range of 5,000 kilometers, is that it doesn’t require AIS vessels to install new equipment. Existing AIS vessel transponders can be used. As an add-on though, exactEarth’s AIS technology package can be integrated directly into customer’s current navigation display systems. For that task exactEarth uses technology that it developed through an agreement with Gatehouse (Nørresundby, Denmark), a satellite navigation and surveillance software technology house.
If all goes well with exactEarth customer trials, the company may actually take a commanding share of the AIS vessel market. And some of the major reasons are that microsatellites are low-cost and very lightweight, making them easy to deploy quickly. Microsatellites weigh in the order of only 100 kilograms, significantly lighter than traditional satellites, which can weigh over a ton. The cost for a microsatellite is somewhere between $10 million and $20 million, much lower than a top-end satellite, which can easily cost up to $300 million to purchase and launch.
The indications so far are that exactEarth’s customer trials will go right. For the last 14 months, exactEarth’s nanosatellite has been circling the globe every 90 minutes and reading AID data securely. And it has done so successfully for other government agencies such as the Canadian Forces and Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), for which the S-AIS system is used to monitor illegal fishing, one of many new markets that S-AIS technology is expected to open up.
