Vessel Monitoring System
The Vessel Monitoring System ( VMS ) is an automatic satellite-based monitoring system for fishing vessels . A blue box will be installed on the ships for this purpose . This automatically sends the data to the surveillance center via satellite .
In this way, the monitoring authorities can check whether the fishing vessel is in a fishing area assigned to it. Reportable port stops of the ship can also be evaluated in this way.
The ship determines its position from the reception of GPS signals. Depending on the system, the Blue Box transmits the data to a geostationary satellite system such as Inmarsat -C. It differs from the Automatic Identification System , which is designed as a collision protection and monitoring system near the coast.
Since 1998, fishing vessels with a length of more than 24 meters have been equipped with a vessel monitoring system.