AIS receiver and dispatcher ! The best ?!

Updated 2024-02-18

I found this amazing application, AIS-catcher, just scrolling around on Youtube and it includes "all" you need for an AIS receiver staying ashore or installed on a boat.

It is compatible with a wide range of Software Defined Radios (SDRs). These include RTL-SDR dongles (such as the ShipXplorer AIS dongle and RTL SDR Blog v4), AirSpy (Mini/R2/HF+), HackRF, SDRPlay, SoapySDR, and file/network input (ZMQ/RTL-TCP/SpyServer). 

Intro

Output

AIS-catcher can deliver output in the form of NMEA messages, default, which can be conveniently displayed on screen or forwarded via UDP/HTTP/TCP.

With this approach it's simple to forward the NMEA to aggregators, type Marintraffic, Vesselfinder or to some other local application.

It also includes a WEB server, not activated by default, that can serve a lot of information including the picture above.

Charts

At the end of this post you will find a setup on how to use off-line charts. 

Source another application

If you already have an application, OpenCPN, Signal K, Navionics App or ...... ?, showing charts and accepts NMEA 0183 AIS input it's easy to use this app as just a receiver, without the WEB-server function, and use for example the UDP output for the other application.

This app have better sensitivity and lower CPU load than other I used so in my case it's the source for Signal K to display the targets, see setup info below. Another popular application is OpenCPN.

Warning !

I'm using this setup on our boat and are using a simple buck converter, 12V DC => 5V DC, to source the Raspberry Pi 4. In this case the converter was placed direct below the SDR and interfered so much that there was almost no reception. So check for a good power supply, away from the dongle, and shielding.

Another trix to minimize the problem is using an USB extension cable so the dongle is away from the interferences emitted by the power supply and the computer.

As a last measure I added a ferrite bead on the USB cable which also increased the reception range.

Install

The application is very well documented, also the install, but this post will cover a simple install on a Raspberry Pi 3(RPi), Bookworm Lite 64 bit, with a RTL-SDR, Nano 3, USB dongle.

On a updated RPi, with hostname "test", run the following commands

sudo apt install librtlsdr-dev

*With GIT

sudo apt-get install git make gcc g++ cmake pkg-config -y

git clone https://github.com/jvde-github/AIS-catcher.git

*

*Without GIT (=> Like this approach to do a minimal install. Pick the latest)

sudo apt-get install make gcc g++ cmake pkg-config -y

wget https://github.com/jvde-github/AIS-catcher/archive/refs/tags/v0.57.zip

unzip v0.57.zip && mv AIS-catcher-0.57 AIS-catcher

*

cd AIS-catcher
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..

-- The C compiler identification is GNU 12.2.0
-- The CXX compiler identification is GNU 12.2.0
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/cc - skipped
-- Detecting C compile features
-- Detecting C compile features - done
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/c++ - skipped
-- Detecting CXX compile features
-- Detecting CXX compile features - done
-- Found PkgConfig: /usr/bin/pkg-config (found version "1.8.1")
-- Performing Test CMAKE_HAVE_LIBC_PTHREAD
-- Performing Test CMAKE_HAVE_LIBC_PTHREAD - Success
-- Found Threads: TRUE
-- Looking for linux/can.h
-- Looking for linux/can.h - found
-- Looking for linux/can/raw.h
-- Looking for linux/can/raw.h - found
-- NMEA2000: not found NMEA2000_LIB-NOTFOUND NMEA2000_INCLUDE-NOTFOUND
-- Checking for module 'libusb-1.0'
-- Found libusb-1.0, version 1.0.26
...
-- Checking for module 'zlib'
-- Found zlib, version 1.2.13
-- ZLIB: found - /usr/include, /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libz.so
...
-- Checking for module 'librtlsdr'
-- Found librtlsdr, version 0.6.0
-- RTLSDR: found - /usr/include, /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/librtlsdr.so
-- Looking for rtlsdr_set_bias_tee
-- Looking for rtlsdr_set_bias_tee - found
-- RTLSDR: bias-tee support included.
-- Looking for rtlsdr_set_tuner_bandwidth
-- Looking for rtlsdr_set_tuner_bandwidth - found
-- RTLSDR: tuner badwidth support included.

...
-- Configuring done
-- Generating done
-- Build files have been written to: /home/pi/AIS-catcher/build

make (=> This took approx 10 minutes on a RPi 3)

sudo make install

Above we can see that the build generator found the dependency for RTL-SDR. Test the install with

pi@test:~/AIS-catcher/build $ AIS-catcher -l

AIS-catcher (build Feb 18 2024) v0.56-122-gf99160f8

(C) Copyright 2021-2023 jvde-github and other contributors

This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.There is NO

warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Found 1 device(s):

0: NooElec, NESDR Nano 3, SN: 5566669999

Check if you receive any data from the dongle with a connected antenna.

AIS-catcher -v 10 -u 127.0.0.1 10110

"-u 127.0.0.1 10110" makes the application forward UDP messages to local host port 10110. There is a built in WEB-server which you activate adding "-N 8100" where 8100 is the port number where you find the WEB page. 

AIS-catcher -v 10 -u 127.0.0.1 10110 -N 8100

Use the below URL for a host "test".

http://test.local:8100

 

To get distances to the AIS targets you have to tell the application where you are so 

AIS-catcher -v 10 -u 127.0.0.1 10110 -N 8100 -N LAT 56.00 LON 12.00 SHARE_LOC on

Update

It's almost the same as install. In your home directory "/home/pi"

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y && sudo apt clean

rm v0* 

rm master.zip

rm -rf AIS-catcher

wget https://github.com/jvde-github/AIS-catcher/archive/refs/tags/v0.58.zip

unzip v0.58.zip && mv AIS-catcher-0.58 AIS-catcher

cd AIS-catcher
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..

make

sudo systemctl stop ais

sudo make install

sudo systemctl start ais

How to participate

Here you can read about how to participate and share your data. Just add "-X" to the command line 

AIS-catcher -v 10 -u 127.0.0.1 10110 -N 8100 -N LAT 56.00 LON 12.00 SHARE_LOC on -X

If you are on version >= v0.58 you can register your station and add the given UUID to the -X parameter.

 

Signal K

To source Signal K(SK), could also be OpenPlotter or OpenCPN, start AIS-catcher with command 

AIS-catcher -o 0 -u 127.0.0.1 10110

"-o 0" will suppress NMEA messages so they don't end up in the log. To receive the messages add a connection, in SK, with datatype "NMEA0183", Source "UDP", port "10110". 

To autostart AIS-catcher just use the info below and the command above.

Autostart

The recommended autostart is using systemd. Here is info for a script that does the job but I did a simple one below.

Create the servicefile

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/ais.service

and add the info 

[Unit]

Description=AIS

After=syslog.target network-online.target

[Service]

Type=simple

User=root

ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/AIS-catcher -v 10 -u 127.0.0.1 10110 -N 8100 -N LAT 56.00 LON 12.00 SHARE_LOC on -X

Restart=on-failure

RestartSec=10

KillMode=process

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

and then to activate and check 

pi@test:~ $ sudo systemctl daemon-reload

pi@test:~ $ sudo systemctl enable ais

Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/ais.service → /etc/systemd/system/ais.service.

pi@test:~ $ sudo systemctl start ais

pi@test:~ $ sudo systemctl status ais

● ais.service - AIS

     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/ais.service; enabled; preset: enabled)

     Active: active (running) since Mon 2023-12-11 23:33:43 CET; 16s ago

   Main PID: 1473 (AIS-catcher)

      Tasks: 5 (limit: 765)

        CPU: 3.897s

     CGroup: /system.slice/ais.service

             └─1473 /usr/local/bin/AIS-catcher -v 10 -u 127.0.0.1 10110 -u 127.0.0.1 10111 -N 8100 -N LAT 56.117 LON 12.603 SHARE_LOC on -X

Dec 11 23:33:52 test AIS-catcher[1473]: !AIVDM,1,1,,A,13=@ir01iE0ppftP8NLU6l1T0@NJ,0*39 ( MSG: 1, REPEAT: 0, MMSI: 215233000, signalpower: -14.0567, ppm: 2.31481, timestamp: 20231211223351)

Dec 11 23:33:52 test AIS-catcher[1473]: !AIVDM,1,1,,B,13u=7U003M0qW8HP65EL79gV0<0Q,0*1D ( MSG: 1, REPEAT: 0, MMSI: 265504660, signalpower: -13.851, ppm: -2.02546, timestamp: 20231211223352)

Dec 11 23:33:54 test AIS-catcher[1473]: !AIVDM,1,1,,A,1815=F@w1>PqA=lP7BqTuCu`0<13,0*74 ( MSG: 1, REPEAT: 0, MMSI: 538004825, signalpower: -3.77949, ppm: 1.44676, timestamp: 20231211223354)

.....

.....

Watchdog

To secure the running application you can apply a Watchdog.

Remarks

CPU Load

Also did a test with a RPi Zero W, running the recommended RPi OS 32 bit Bullseye, and it didn't perform as god as the mentioned RPi3 with 64 bit Bookworm. This despite that I used option -F which really decreased the CPU load. The RPi 3 detected about 50% more AIS targets. In this comment there are some trix you can check.

Calibrate

If you are using an older or cheaper SDR-RTL don't forget to calibrate ! 

Check out this info regarding Frequency Shift which can help. So if the chart "Frequency Shift (avg PPM per hour)" is showing -2.5 test to use, in the command line, "-p -2.5" to compensate the SDR-RTL:s deviation from the correct frequency.

Off line charts

Version >=v0.57

With tips from Jasper the setup below will serve off-line tiles.

If you have set up systemd as above, stop with the commands

sudo systemctl stop ais

webassets

Showing off line charts, no Internet, also includes a setup where relying online

libraries are downloaded. 

Go to your home directory "/home/pi". Download and create the "webassets" directory. 

wget https://github.com/jvde-github/webassets/archive/refs/heads/main.zip

unzip main.zip && mv webassets-main webassets

You will later add the CDN argument to the command line "CDN /home/pi/webassets"

Charts

I downloaded from this FTP site  the charts for the Baltics.

wget https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/openstreetmap/openseamap/charts/mbtiles/OSM-OpenCPN2-Baltic.mbtiles

Tile server

Install Node.js 20 => https://github.com/nodesource/distributions#installation-instructions and update npm to the latest

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash

sudo apt install nodejs

sudo npm install -g npm@latest

Install the tile server which is needed serving the downloaded charts,

sudo npm install -g tileserver-gl-light

Start the tile server with the downloaded charts

tileserver-gl-light OSM-OpenCPN2-Baltic.mbtiles

Check the tile server function at "http://test.local:8080"

Plugin config

In a new terminal session create a file

nano offlinemaps.pjs

and add the following

// { "version": 2, "description": "offline openseamap", "author": "jvde-github" }

addTileLayer("Offline OSM Baltic", new ol.layer.Tile({

source: new ol.source.XYZ({

url: 'http://test.local:8080/data/OSM-OpenCPN2-Baltic/{z}/{x}/{y}.png',

attribution: '©',

subdomains: 'abcd',

maxZoom: 14,

minZoom: 8

})

}));

Test AIS-catcher

Start the AIS application and check out the new chart.

AIS-catcher -v 10 -u 127.0.0.1 10110 -N 8100 -N LAT 56.00 LON 12.00 SHARE_LOC on -X CDN /home/pi/webassets PLUGIN /home/pi/offlinemaps.pjs

systemd

Edit the "ais.service" file with the above command and then 

sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo systemctl restart ais

systemd tileserver autostart

Stop the 2 applications.

To autostart the tile server copy the "ais.service" file

sudo cp /etc/systemd/system/ais.service /etc/systemd/system/tileserver.service

Edit with 

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/tileserver.service

Below the line "After=syslog.target network-online.target" add "Before=ais.service"

and then change "ExecStart=....." To "ExecStart=/usr/bin/tileserver-gl-light /home/pi/OSM-OpenCPN2-Baltic.mbtiles"

Start up the servers with 

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

and then 

sudo systemctl enable tileserver && sudo systemctl start tileserver

sudo systemctl enable ais && sudo systemctl start ais

Older versions <= v0.56

The file "nano offlinemaps.pjs" have a little different content for older versions.

addTileLayer("Offline OSM Baltic",L.tileLayer('http://test.local:8080/data/OSM-OpenCPN2-Baltic/{z}/{x}/{y}.png', {
attribution: '&copy;',
subdomains: 'abcd',
maxZoom: 14,
minZoom: 8
}));