U.S. Coast Guard Receives Automatic Identification System from Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman, a global security firm that provides advanced products and solutions as well as technical services to commercial and government customers, announced that it has developed and supplied the Nationwide Automatic Identification System (AIS) to the U.S. Coast Guard who will test and evaluate the system before deployment.

On a national scale, the AIS will offer a complete view of vessels, which are set forth for navigating in waterways and ports to enhance security, safety and efficiency. The required shore-side network, communications and processing capabilities were developed by Northrop Grumman so as to ensure that AIS data exchange is performed effectively.

The VP of Northrop Grumman Information Systems, Pat Camacho informed that the aim of the U.S. Coast Guard to improve maritime domain awareness encompass the capability to trace and recognize possible danger as quickly as possible without impacting the U.S. interests. Vessels that are integrated with AIS create virtual network and monitoring such network will aid decision-makers to react to safety and security issues in a better way.

Test scenarios and environments were incorporated during the AIS developmental test and assessment procedure, before delivering the system to the Coast Guard. These exercises were done to satisfy availability, maintainability and reliability needs at physical as well as logical shore deployments. Further tests were conducted on a test vessel navigating different speeds and courses in offshore and waterways out to 50 nautical miles.

Nationwide AIS is a two-way maritime digital communication solution that will monitor the infrastructure which harnesses, stores, and distributes AIS information. It will monitor incoming vessels to ascertain vessel identity, speed, position, course, destination, and cargo data. This data will be merged with other surveillance and intelligence data which will be conveyed to government operators to improve maritime situational awareness. In addition, the system will increase environmental protection and aid in search and rescue operations.

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