Generation of navigation database using AIS data for remote situational awareness of coastal vessels

Automatic identification system (AIS) data obtained from vessel traffic service (VTS) centers can be used for maritime traffic analysis and management as they include various useful information pertaining to each vessel navigated in the control area of VTS centers. This study presents a systematic procedure to generate a database (DB) using historical AIS data for learning the navigation patterns of coastal vessels and applying them to remote situational awareness. A hierarchical navigation DB structure is designed to simultaneously include the positional and kinematic attributes of AIS data classified based on vessel type and length class. Statistical parameterizations are performed to efficiently represent the positional and kinematic attributes in the DB space. Experimental results based on an actual AIS dataset obtained from a VTS center are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of the proposed method for remote situational awareness.