aiscot 5.2.1

AIS Cursor-On-Target Gateway.

Description

The Automatic Identification System to Cursor on Target gateway (AISCOT) transforms automatic identification system (AIS) to Cursor on Target (CoT) for use with TAK products such as ATAK, WinTAK & iTAK. Vessels sending AIS either over the air (RF), through a local networks (NMEA), or through internet aggregators (AISHUB), will be displayed in TAK with appropriate icons, attitude, type, track, bearing, speed, callsign and more.

For more information the TAK Product suite, see: https://ww.tak.gov

AISCOT was original developed to support an open ocean boat race in the Northern Pacific Ocean, as described in this article: http://ampledata.org/boat_race_support.html

Concept of Operations

AISCOT can operate in two different modes, as described in detail below:

1. AIS Over-the-air (RF)

2. AIS Aggregator (AISHUB)

AIS Over-the-air Operation (RF)

Receive AIS data from a VHF AIS receiver, such as the Megwatt dAISy+. From there AIS can be decoded by AIS Dispatcher and forwarded to AISCOT to be transformed to COT and transmitted to COT destinations.

AIS Aggregator Operation (AISHUB.com)

Receive AIS data from the AISHUB service. Requires a subscription to AISHUB.

Support Development

Installation

AISCOT requires Python 3.6 or above.

AISCOT functionality is provided by a command-line tool called aiscot, which can be installed several ways.

Installing as a Debian/Ubuntu Package [Use Me!]:

$ wget https://github.com/ampledata/pytak/releases/latest/download/python3-pytak_latest_all.deb
$ sudo apt install -f ./python3-pytak_latest_all.deb
$ wget https://github.com/ampledata/aiscot/releases/latest/download/python3-aiscot_latest_all.deb
$ sudo apt install -f ./python3-aiscot_latest_all.deb

Install from the Python Package Index [Alternative]:

$ python3 -m pip install -U pytak
$ python3 -m pip install -U aiscot

Install from this source tree [Developer]:

$ git clone https://github.com/ampledata/aiscot.git
$ cd aiscot/
$ python3 setup.py aiscot

Usage

AISCOT can be configured with a INI-style configuration file, or using environmental variables.

Command-line options:

usage: aiscot [-h] [-c CONFIG_FILE] [-p PREF_PACKAGE]

optional arguments:
-h, --help            show this help message and exit
-c CONFIG_FILE, --CONFIG_FILE CONFIG_FILE
                        Optional configuration file. Default: config.ini
-p PREF_PACKAGE, --PREF_PACKAGE PREF_PACKAGE
                        Optional connection preferences package zip file (aka Data Package).

Configuration options:

COT_URLstr, default: udp://239.2.3.1:6969

URL to CoT destination. Must be a URL, e.g. tcp://1.2.3.4:1234 or tls://...:1234, etc. See PyTAK for options, including TLS support.

AIS_PORTint, default: 5050

AIS UDP Listen Port, for use with Over-the-air (RF) AIS.

COT_STALEint, default: 3600

CoT Stale period (“timeout”), in seconds. Default 3600 seconds (1 hour).

COT_TYPEstr, default: a-u-S-X-M

Override COT Event Type (“marker type”).

FEED_URLstr, optional

AISHUB feed URL. See AISHUB usage notes in README below.

KNOWN_CRAFTstr, optional

Known Craft hints file. CSV file containing callsign/marker hints.

INCLUDE_ALL_CRAFTbool, optional

If using KNOWN_CRAFT, still include other craft not in our KNOWN_CRAFT list.

IGNORE_ATONbool, optional

IF SET- adsbcot will ignore AIS from Aids to Naviation (buoys, etc).

See example-config.ini in the source tree for example configuration.

AISHUB usage notes

AISHUB.com requires registration. Once registered the site will provide you with a Username that you’ll use with their feed. You’ll also need to specify a Bounding Box when accessing the feed.

The AISHUB_URL must be specified as follows:

https://data.aishub.net/ws.php?format=1&output=json&compress=0&username=AISHUB_USERNAME&latmin=BBOX_LAT_MIN&latmax=BBOX_LAT_MAX&lonmin=BBOX_LON_MON&lonmax=BBOX_LON_MAX

Replacing AISHUB_USERNAME with your AISHUB.com username, and specifying the Bounding Box is specified as follows:

latminsigned float

The minimum latitude of the Bounding Box (degrees from Equator) as a signed float (use negative sign for East: -).

latmaxsigned float

The maximum latitude of the Bounding Box (degrees from Equator) as a signed float (use negative sign for East: -).

lonminsigned float

The minimum longitude of the Bound Box (degrees from Prime Meridian) as a signed float (use negative sign for North: -).

lonmaxsigned float

The maximum longitude of the Bound Box (degrees from Prime Meridian) as a signed float (use negative sign for North: -).

For example, the following Bound Box paints a large swath around Northern California: latmin=35&latmax=38&lonmin=-124&lonmax=-121. This can be read as: “Between 35° and 38° latitude & -121° and -124° longitude”.

Example Setup

The following diagram shows an example setup of AISCOT utilizing a dAISy+ AIS receiver with an outboard Marine VHF antenna, a Raspberry Pi running aisdispatcher and AISCOT, forwarding COT to a TAK Server and WinTAK & ATAK clients. (OV-1)

Database Update

Occasional updates to the YADD Ship Name database can be found at: http://www.yaddnet.org/pages/php/test/tmp/

Updates to the MID database can be found at: TK

Source

Github: https://github.com/ampledata/aiscot

Author

Greg Albrecht [e-mail]

http://ampledata.org/

Copyright

• aiscot Copyright 2023 Greg Albrecht <[e-mail]>

• pyAISm.py Copyright 2016 Pierre Payen

License

Copyright 2023 Greg Albrecht <[e-mail]>

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

• pyAISm.py is licensed under the MIT License. See aiscot/pyAISm.py for details.