'

Andrzej FelskiI KrzysztofJaskolski

Analysisof AISavailability
Despitethe initial objections,crew membersand vesseltraffic servicestaff use an automatic identification sys-
tem in their activities.In the phaseof the systemimplementation,inabilityto receivesignalsat scheduledtimes
was raisedand evidenced.This paper analysesthe issuesof the AIS availabilityon the basisof two polish base
stations.The investigationhas been conductedby the authors in 2006,2007,20'10and 2011.Availabilityhas
been studied from the standpoint of the quality of data transmissionchannel.An attempt was made to assess
the availabilityof the Al5 servicetransmission channel.In this paper,the simplemethodologyfor the assessment
of AIS Serviceavailabilityis proposed.To meet the objectiveof the research,recordeddata derived from the Al5
BaseStation HELand KRYNICAMORSKAwere used.

1 Introduction movementelsewiseinformationdelay or information

error hasbeenappeared.
One of the basicrequirementsof navigationsystems
is to maintain the efficiencyof certain conditionsin Therefore it is reasonableto supplementthe infor-
d e f i n e dt i m e . I n 1 9 9 6 ,t h e F e d e r a R l a d i o - n a v i g a t i o n mation derived from radar with information system
P l a nd e f i n e st h i s f e a t u r ea s a v a i l a b i l i tw
y h i c h a n i n d i - operating automaticallyand continuouslywith accu-
cator of the ability of the systemto provide usable racy of the information comparableto the DGPS.A
servicewithin the specifiedcoveragearea [FRP,1996]. systemthat appearsto be suitableto providethis kind
When AIS is a data systemin this paper it was pro- of informationis Al5, which may be classified as radio
posedto identifythe availabilityof Al5 as availability navigationsystemthat use radio waves to transmit
of informationtransmission channel. data with regardto the ship motion parameters.

Underthis assumption, it might be justifiedto perform
studiesof the Al5 availabilitybasedon recordedmes-
sagesfrom the receiver.Giventhe extraordinaryvola-
tility conditions,evenon a limitedarea(variablenum-
ber of vessels, changingtheir nature,mutual location,
etc.) it is proposedto limit the immutableelements.
Numberof basestationsin the area doesnot change;
their antennasare locatedat fixed altitudesand are
arrangedin the sameplaces.Additionaladvantageof
these stationsin terms of site AIS availabilityis con-
stant intervaltime of transmittedmessaqes from these
stations.
Up to date, the researchfor AIS availabilitywas pre-
sented by some authors,for example[Hori A. et all,
20091and [LapinskiS.,lsenorW, 2011].The experiment
was carriedout on three water areas.Threedifferent
vessels
equippedwith omni-directional and directional
antennaslocatedat different heightswere used.Ves-
selsparticipatingin experimentbroadcastedPosition
Report.The receiveddata were recordedin txt files
The Receptionrate was calculatedwith accordance:
R ,= n ^ , (1)
nT

wnere:
n* - numberof receiveddata packetsper a minute;
2 Currentstatusof knowledge n, - numberof transmitteddata packetsper a minute.
for lhe Al5 availability,
and:
It is common knowledgethat radar is usedto assess R, - (Receptioninterval)
the situation on the sea. However;the radar infor- T, - (Transmission
interval):
mation is constrainedby significant limitations.In
practice,the positionerror is not lessthan 30 meters, I
while the positionerror for navigationradar may be R, -na (2)
up to 100 m. The use of radar informationfor colli- !-i'
sion avoidanceis effectivefor constantvaluesof shios Tt

Volume 10 | Number 1 | Aoril 2012

Table'l!.ini*rr*;li*r r**l*:'ni*g bes* st*l!*ns us*eiin the sir:riywith reg*rcit* th* *vailabi!ity*f A|5 {*wn studyl

HEL 54"35,9' N 018"48,7'E 002611400

KRYNICAMORSKA 54"23,1' N 019"27,0'E 002614100 53
AISsignalreceiver 54"32,6' N 018'32,7'E 15

W h e r ei n c l u d i n g( 1 )w e o b t a i n( 3 ) : 2 Methodologyof the study eoncerning

Al5 avallabillty
R, - R
7" (3)
,
On the coastof the Gulfof Gdanskthereare locatedthree
basestations,which signalscan be receivedin Gdynia.In
Determined a v a i l a b i l i tiys a p p r o x i m a t e l0y. 8 . the experiment depictedin thispape;the availability
of AIS
hasbeenstudiedon the basisof the AIVDMlines,contarn-
T h i sm e t h o ds e e m e dt o b e t i m e c o n s u m i n g a n d c o s t l y . ing the message number4 (BaseStationReport),Analyzed
I t r e q u i r e dt h e s i g n a l sr e g i s t r a t i o nf r o m s e v e r ailn d i - datawere recordedin Gdynia,and originatefrom the base
v i d u a l so f d i f f e r e n th e i g h t so m n i - d i r e c t i o naanl d d i r e c - stationin Heland KrynicaMorska,locatedrespectively 9.5
t i o n a l a n t e n n a sE. x c e s s i vneu m b e r so f v a r i a b l e s( t i m e and32.4nauticalmilesawayfrom the placeof registration.
interval,antenna height, speed of ship) slow down
t h e c a l c u l a t i o np r o c e s sa n d c o m p l i c a t ei n v e s t i g a t i o n Havingthe informationon broadcasting antennaheight
results. and antennaheight of the receive[the maximumdis-
tanceshavebeensetbetweenantennasaccordino to the
I n t h e G u l f o f G d a n s kt h e r e i s a b e n e f i c i acl o n f i g u r a - f o r m u l a :
tion of base stationslocated in different directions
f r o m G d y n i aw , ith goodconditiono s f s i g n a lp r o p a g a - d =2,08(.1K4 + ",lKhr)[nauticalmiles] (4)
tion. The proposedmethod is basedon basestations
s i g n a l .S i g n a lr e g i s t r a t i o ntsa k e p l a c ei n a f i x e d t i m e w h e r e :
i n t e r v a l ,a t a c o n s t a n th e i g h t o f a n t e n n a sa n d f i x e d /r- antennaheight,
oosition. K- matchingcoefficient(refraction)K=4/3
 Figure 1. Location of broadcasting stations and the receiver [www.i].
therefore:
Accordingto [lTU RM1371,2010] basestation trans-
mits the messageNo. 4 with a fixed 10 secondstime
interval.This messagecontainsdetailed information
about time (yearimonth, day, hou4 minute, second
UTC)and MMSI number that identifiesthe basesta-
tion. lt is possibleto create databasequeriesbased
on these data. Database contains recordings of
measurementsin hourly intervals.Queries to the
databaseare designedto give an answer how many
times per minute the receiverwill record informa-
tion from base stations.Simply,if one registers360
communicationsin t hour from one basestatiort,it
meansthe value of the transmissionchannel avail-
a b i l i t y w i l l b e1 0 0 % .
The most popular method for determiningof radio-
navigationsystemavailabilityis the ratio of the Mean
TimeBetweenFailureand the sum of MTBFand Mean
Time To Repair.
/t_
MfBF
(4)
WBF + MTTR
where:
MTBF- Mean Time BetweenFailure;
MTTR- Mean TimeTo Repair.
Forthe quantitativedescriptionof availability,
it is pos-
sibleto acceptMTTR(MeanTimeTo Repair)which can
be identified with the expectedtime of systemfailure.
In this study it was assumedthat the MTTRwill result
from the amount of lack of transmission message#4.
When radio signalsare broadcastedevery 10 seconds,
it is possibleto determinate MTTRbasedon the num-
ber of messagesthat have not been receivedat the
scheduledtime. lt impliesMTTRisthe averagetime for
the lackof data.
41
 ::i*iiii:lil,::*:g:*j:llli*rilrr:.ii:
I

l*bl* i. fh* r***ils *f Al5 av*iicbillty investigatr*::*l.*rvnstudyl.

DATE REGFTBAflON' MTBF[sl MTTRtsl AVAILABILITY MTBF[s] MTTRtsl auefreg'HT"

ruEttl HEL KRYNICA
2006.04.03 42359 30809 11550 0,727330674 39019 3340 0,921150169
2006.04.04 86400 39410 46990 0,456134259 66440 19960 0,768981481
2006.04.05 86400 44230 42170 0,511921296 71380 15020 0,826157407
r 2006.04.06 86400 58410 27990 0,676041667 74850 11550 0,866319444

2006.04.10 66539 32809 33730 0,493079241 50529 16010 0,75938923

,2006.04.11 86400 48620 37780 0,562731481 66640 19760 0,171296296
:2006.04j2 86400 49030 37370 0,567476852 58020 28380 0,671527778
2006.04.13 86400 75520 10880 0,814074074 79930 6470 0,925115741

2010.12.28 86400 86268 132 0,998472222 84024 2376 0,9725

:2010.12.29 86400 85980 420 0,99s138889 82326 4014 0,952841222
,2010.12.30 86400 86250 150 0,998263889 82914 3426 0,960341222
2010.1231 86400 86322 78 0,999097222 83190 3210 0,962847222

' l' r
2011.01.09 86400 86214 186 0,997847222 70080 16320 0,81l r 11 1
2011"01.10 86400 86148 252 0,997083333 76092 10308 0,880694444
:2011.01.11 86400 86202 198 0,997708333 75882 10518 0,878263889
2011.01.12 23519 23477 42 0,99821421 21131 23BB 0,898465071

3 Statistiee,selmrnaryef th€ A!5 data €onelusion

transrnissisn ehannelavaiNabilitv
On the basisof investigation resultscontainedin Table2,
The studywas performedon data recordedin selected there were no possibilities to conduct daily 24-hour
68 days during the period between 03.04.2006and s i g n a l sr e c o r d i n g sT.h e m i n i m u mr e c o r d i n gt i m e w a s
12.01.2011 in the PolishNaval Academy laboratory, 4680seconds on 2007.09.1 1.The improvementphaseof
usingSAABR4AISreceiver, which givesriseto compar- AIS-PLillustrateinvestigation scoresin April 2006.The
i s o n so f p o s s i b l vea r i a b i l i t yo f t h e s ep a r a m e t e r sT.a b l e m i n i m u ml e v e lo f a v a i l a b i l i tdya t at r a n s m i s s i ocnh a n n e l
2 presentsthe collecteddata and the corresponding for basestationHELwas0.4561(2006.04.04). Therefore,
coefficients. resultsfrom this periodhave been omitted,but it was
the periodof systemcalibration.

T*bl*3"$*r:rn:*ryn:llir* avaiir!:l,lay
A{t};xa!vs!s{r*rn Reported investigationsprove the high quality of
: S S 6 .i 1
.:: i* 20'l'1.C1.11 b r o a d c a s t esdi g n a la n d i t s h o u l db e e s t a b l i s h etdh a t
the lack of the accessibility of the Al5 information
should not get out of inefficiencies of the radio chan-
nel. rather as the result of unsuitablework of ship's
sourcesof information,
0,87778
The resultsof the availabilityof the data transmis-
1-A(t) 0,00550 0,'t2221 sion channelinvestigations
for basestation KRYNICA
MORSKAmay suggest,that AISstationsare broadcast

l_
42 EuropeanJournalof Ngylsrtigl_

Fig.2. The availabilityof basestation Hel. [own study].
the signalsover the geometric range however the
presenceof atmosphericnoise and interferencephe-
nomenonreducesthe qualityof the data transmission
channelin somesituationwhat iscomonlyknown.
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43