bwac - barentswatch API Client

The script in this repository allows to collect AIS messages send via the barentswatch REST API for AIS data.

Installation

Install from source:

git clone https://github.com/2maz/barentswatch-apiclient.git

python3 -m venv venv-barents-watch
. venv-barents-watch/bin/activate

pip install ./barentswatch-apiclient

Usage

Create an account and register a client (see http://developer.barentswatch.no/docs/appreg). Create a .env file with the credentials for accessing the

BARENTS_WATCH_CLIENT_ID=your@email.com:yourapp
BARENTS_WATCH_CLIENT_SECRET=XXXXX

To download data from the livestream by creating daily CSV files of the format AIS_YYYY_mm_dd.csv use

$> bwac live

To retrieve data from the historic api for a specific timeframe, which can be a maximum of 14 days in the past (this limit is set by barentswatch):

$> bwac historic --from-date 2026-04-14T00:00:00+00:00 --to-date 2026-04-15T23:59:59+00:00

License

This work is licensed under the BSD-3-Clause License. Data is made accessible via barentswatch.no and licensed under Norwegian License for Public Data (see also https://www.barentswatch.no/artikler/api-vilkar/).

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2025-2026 Simula Research Laboratory, Oslo, Norway

Acknowledgments

All data is provided by the live AIS API from barentswatch.no.

The development of this client is part of the EU-project AI4COPSEC which receives funding from the Horizon Europe framework programme under Grant Agreement N. 101190021.