During the last century, the vhf ( very high frequency ) communication has been applied in the ship's transportation, as well as radar and arpa also could identify ships in the marine . but they could n't adapt to the needs of the modern navigation because of their limits . the rapid development of the digital communications technology, computer technology and net ware technology supports the needed technology of ais ( automatic identification system ) 上个世纪,vhf通信技术被广泛地应用于船舶通信;雷达、arpa具有识别船舶的功能,但是由于自身的局限性而无法适应现代航运安全的需求;随着数字通信技术、计算机技术以及网络信息技术的飞速发展,ais的技术基础已经搭建好,在航运界对助航设备的要求越来越高的情况下,船舶自动识别系统应运而生。