This project is a low cost implementation of a AIS receiver with a radar like display. The power source can be a USB power bank to become mobile.
It's based on a Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller and can display the position, course and speed of up to 11 ships in the neighborhood. Speed and course are represented by a colored line. The line starts with a number as identifier at the current position of the ship. It ends at the estimated position of the ship in 10 minutes.
If a ship comes closer than 0.2 nautical miles an alarm is triggered.
Up to 11 different ships can be displayed simultaneously.
! Only ships sending AIS messages are displayed!
- Raspberry Pi pico RP2040
- TFT SPI 480x320 px 3.5"
- serial output GPS module with antenna (I used a ublox NEO 6M module)
- serial output AIS receiver with antenna (I used a "dAISy HAT - AIS Receiver" from https://wegmatt.com/)
- USB power bank
- USB cable to connect the power bank to the Pico
- some wires
- housing
| PICO GPIO | SPI Display |
|---|---|
| 2 | DC/RS |
| 1 | CS |
| 7 | SDI(MOSI) |
| 6 | SCK |
| 0 | RESET |
| 8 | SDO(MISO) |
| 3.3V (OUT) | VCC |
| VBUS (+5V) | LED |
| GND | GND |
| PICO GPIO | GPS module |
|---|---|
| 16 | RX |
| 17 | TX |
| 3.3V (OUT) | VCC |
| GND | GND |
| PICO GPIO | AIS receiver |
|---|---|
| 20 | RX |
| 21 | TX |
| VBUS(+5V) | 5V |
| GND | GND |
To compile your own AIS radar (if you want to modify the code or use other pins or hardware, ...) you need a the Arduino environment with the Board "Raspberry Pi Pico/RP2040" installed. You also need some libraries that I used:
- TFT_eSPI from https://github.com/Bodmer/TFT_eSPI by Bodmer. ! Edit the "User_Setup.h" in library/TFT_eSPI/ folder to meet display and pins!
- UnixTime from https://github.com/GyverLibs/UnixTime Alex Gyver alex@alexgyver.ru
- AIS-master from https://github.com/KimBP/AIS Kim Bøndergaarg kim@fam-boendergaard.dk
Configure the ublox GPS module with the help of "u-center" software to send only RMC messages every second with 38400 baud
- Edit the "User_Setup.h" in Arduino/library/TFT_eSPI/ folder to meet display and pins
- Connect your Pico to an USB port of your computer while pressing the "BOOTSEL" button
- Release the button
- Open Arduino environment
- Select Pico as your board
- Copy the files "AIS_Radar.ino" and "functions.h" to a new sketch
- Be sure that Upload Method is Default (UF2)
- Press the Upload button
- Connect your Pico to an USB port of your computer while pressing the "BOOTSEL" button
- Copy the file "AIS_Radar.uf2" to the mounted Pico folder
- Power on the AIS-Radar by connecting the Pico USB port to your power bank.
- Wait a few minutes to get a GPS fix. (on screen the message changes from "no fix" to "okay")
- On the right side of the screen will be a table.
- The first two rows give your position, course and speed.
- When a ships enters your vicinity (observed area is a circle around your position with a radius of 5 nautical miles), it will be shown as a colored line on the left side on the radar map and as double row in the table on the right side in the same color.
- If AIS_Radar also receives type 24 messages according an existing mmsi, ship type, length and name is also shown.
- D=2.4nm@165' means: the ship is 2.4 nautical miles away on 165° degree.