Ship Exhaust Real-Time Monitoring System based on Automatic Identification System

Abstract

Maritime traffic is a major source of pollutant gases and we believe that it is important to quantify these gases in order to assess their impact on the environment. This paper proposes a maritime monitoring system able to estimate in real time the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and particulate matter (PM) from ships crossing the Strait of Gibraltar area. The system works based on the Automatic Identification System (AIS) : it consists of an AIS receiver connected to a computer in which was installed an application able to determine, store and display emissions from ships. The computer application was performed according to a method for estimating CO 2 and PM emissions from AIS data. The system was installed near the Strait of Gibraltar (exactly in Tangier -Morocco) and tests were carried out for about a month (between March 26 and April 23, 2014). The system recorded emissions from 900 to 4000 tons of CO 2 and 2 to 9 tons of PM each day.