Personal AIS SART beacons are a popular boating accessory to provide man-over-board (MOB) security and aid location of a casualty. In simple terms, they fit onto a life jacket/life vest and when the MOB situation occurs, the life jacket inflates and this actives the AIS beacon. The AIS beacon then immediately sends a specific AIS MOB message which can be received by any vessel equipped with AIS.
The transmissions use VHF frequencies so range is typically 2-5NM even with the casualty at sea level and with waves. The beacons also incorporate a GPS so the casualties position is also updated and this data is encoded in the transmission.
Beacons are relatively low cost -around €350, and are a vital piece of personal safety equipment
Enhancing Offshore Worker Safety with AIS Technology
Digital Yacht have been innovators in AIS technology over the past decade and we now see lots of specific applications for the technology – and in particular for lone workers on maritime structures such as oil rigs, platforms, wind farms or even coastal facilities such as ports and airports where personnel may be working around the water’s edge.
Digital Yacht now have a turn key solution for this application utilising one of our hi-sensitivity dual channel AIS receivers, locally mounted on the structure and using standard NMEA 2000 alerts to activate a local alarm or provide a feed to 3rd party systems to generate a specific action.
It could be for instance, to generate an alert for the local PMR radio network. We’ve also created applications to generate SMS messages for remote monitoring.
If there’s a local control room then we have PC software which will display local AIS activity and provide a console display of the AIS MOB casualty on a detailed chart so there’s many options available.
Our MOB Alert system can also be incorporated for a manual activation of a MOB situation – this device generates a synthetic AIS MOB signal for the network. It’s also possible to utilise our ultra loud NavAlarm for local alarms.
This is just one of many solutions that we innovate – using value priced, standard technology to support 3rd party applications. You can reach the solutions team at sales@digitalyacht.co.uk
