Development of radar simulator software using AIS data for ship data

A radar simulator for ships is a device for effective education concerning safety in ship navigation. In existing radar simulators, it is necessary to simulate surrounding ship data, and much effort is required to input such data. Therefore, this study aims to address this problem using AIS (Automatic Identification System) data. The proposed radar simulator system simultaneously achieves the following functions: (1) the creation and display of simulated radar images based on AIS data and (2) the display and overlay of AIS information on radar screens. As a result, it is possible to train individuals in ship maneuvering using actual ship traffic of a specific ocean area as the environment in the surroundings of one´s own ship. Moreover, this proposed radar simulator system works on a general PC. Thus, it is possible to have two or more people simultaneously participate in training using a network with two or more PCs. In this paper, the outline of the proposed system and simulation results are described.