The interpolation of missing AIS data can be used for recovering the lost data of a ship’s state which is then able to produce useful information for VTS stations or other ships. Previous research has introduced some interpolating methods however there are some problems with regard to missing AIS data. This paper proposes one new method which includes linear interpolation, cubic Hermit interpolation and an identification mechanism to overcome some of those limitations, first AIS data regarding ship position, COG, SOG and HDG is divided into separate time series, then the characteristic of the missing data is investigated into through using an identification mechanism, an appropriate interpolation is selected to fit all the time series which matches the characteristics. Numerical experiments are carried out using real AIS data to validate the algorithm of this approach and the results are compared with the previous method, after which the actual missing area is suggested to be interpolated by the proposed method. The interpolation results show this approach can be applied well in practice.

This paper presents an improvement for calculating method of astronomical ship position based on circle of equal altitude equation. In addition, to enhance the accuracy of ship position achieved from solving equation system, the authors used singular value decomposition (SVD) in least square method instead of normal decomposition. In maths, the SVD was proved more numerically stable than normal decomposition. Therefore, the solution of equation system will be more efficient and the result would be more accurate than previous methods. By proposal algorithm, a computer program have been developed to help the navigators in calculating directly ship position when the modern equipment has failure. Finally, some of experiments are carried out to verify effectiveness of proposed algorithm, the results show that the accuracy of ship position based on new method is better than the intercept method.