Autonomous Maritime Radio Devices are a category the ITU created to bring order to the growing population of maritime transmitters that operate on their own — AIS-based aids to navigation, man-overboard beacons, net and fishing-gear markers, data buoys — all sharing the crowded VHF maritime band. Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has now taken the first formal step toward regulating them domestically.
What did MIC actually announce?
In a June 24, 2026 release, MIC stated that it had received a partial report from the Information and Communications Council on the technical requirements for Autonomous Maritime Radio Devices, and that it plans to promptly develop the relevant regulations on that basis. The work sits under the long-standing council consultation on Technical Requirements for Maritime Radio Communication Equipment. MIC notes the published materials are in Japanese only. In Japan's process, a council report of this kind is the technical foundation that the ministry then turns into binding radio-equipment rules — so this announcement marks the point at which the technical requirements are settled enough to draft regulations, not the point at which those regulations take effect.
What are Autonomous Maritime Radio Devices?
The reference framework is Recommendation ITU-R M.2135, Technical characteristics of autonomous maritime radio devices operating in the frequency band 156-162.05 MHz, developed under WRC Resolution 362. AMRD are radio devices that transmit autonomously in the VHF maritime band without being under the direct control of a person, and the ITU work exists to keep that autonomous traffic from degrading the safety and AIS services the band is built around.
How do Group A and Group B differ, and why does it matter?
The ITU framework divides AMRD into two groups by their impact on the band. Group A devices enhance the safety of navigation and operate on maritime VHF and AIS channels — for example AIS aids to navigation and man-overboard devices — so they must coexist with, and be protected like, safety-of-life traffic. Group B devices have a more limited effect and operate on a single designated frequency, channel 2006 (160.900 MHz), at low duty — think net markers, fishing-gear buoys, and simple data buoys. The Group A/Group B distinction drives the interference-protection and technical requirements a device must meet, so classifying a product correctly is the first decision, not an afterthought.
Is this an equipment-certification change or a spectrum change?
Both threads run through it, and keeping them separate avoids a common error. The council report establishes the technical requirements; MIC will translate those into radio-equipment rules, and a device sold in Japan will then need to demonstrate conformity — in practice through MIC's technical-regulations conformity certification, the route that yields the Giteki mark under the Radio Law. That is the equipment-certification thread. Distinct from it is the spectrum thread: which frequencies and channels Japan designates for AMRD use. Until MIC issues the implementing rules, the specific designated frequencies, the conformity test details, and the effective dates for Japan are not yet fixed — the ITU groups and channel above are the international baseline the domestic rules will build on.
What should manufacturers do now?
- Identify any AMRD-class products aimed at Japan — AIS aids to navigation, MOB devices, net/gear markers, data buoys — and classify each as Group A or Group B against ITU-R M.2135.
- Track MIC's follow-through. The binding details — designated frequencies, technical conformity requirements, and effective dates — arrive with the implementing regulations, not with this council report.
- Plan for the Giteki route. Expect market access to run through MIC technical-regulations conformity certification once the equipment rules publish; scope test evidence against the ITU technical characteristics in the meantime.
- Separate the two questions in your project plan: equipment conformity (certification) and frequency designation (spectrum) will move on their own timelines.