Sammendrag
In this paper, we present an investigation of space-based Automatic Identification System (AlS) signal reception for a triple CubeSat sized satellite orbiting in a polar Low Earth Orbit (LEO), using the existing Very High Frequency (VHF) communication channeis. Today's ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship communication are limited by the horizon, which means that vessels more than 50 nautical miles or 80 km away would not be detected. Kongsberg Seatex, together with the Norwegian Space Center, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) and Norspace are currently exploring the possibility of designing and constructing a triple CubeSat containing an AlS Software Defined Radio (SDR) transceiver. Link performance in terms of received signal power and carrier-to-noise ratio as function of angle of elevation is investigated, where results show that space-based AlS reception is possible.
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