[Satellite Today – 3-6-08] Com Dev International Ltd. completed the airborne validation trials of its advanced Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver solution, the company announced March 5.
    The trials validated aspects of system performance and demonstrated that Com Dev’s receiver solution can extract a greater number of AIS signals compared to a standard receiver approach, the company said. The results suggest that such a system, employed in space, will provide a persistent and predictable level of performance.
    A nanosatellite, which is being built by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies/Space Flight Lab, will be ready for launch this spring to provide the first space-based validation trial of an advanced AIS capability designed to deal with large numbers of overlapping AIS signals. In parallel, Com Dev partner Gatehouse is developing software that will enable data collected from space to be displayed and managed as part of an integrated maritime domain awareness picture.