SPx ECDIS Radar Kit

What is ECDIS?

An ECDIS (Electronic Chart Display and Information System) is a computer-based navigation system used by commercial shipping.

The SPx ECDIS Radar Kit

The SPx ECDIS Radar kit provides a set of components for primary radar video acquisition, radar display, chart display and tracking, any or all of which may be easily incorporated into an ECDIS application. Aimed at system integrators developing Windows-based ECDIS solutions, SPx ECDIS provides a radar interface card, high-performance software scan converter, ENC display, image mixer and target tracker in a cost-effective, flexible package. The SPx ECDIS package provides:

• Radar input using the HPx-200C card
• Radar scan conversion (PPI)
• Electronic Chart (ENC) display
• Target tracking
• Display Mixing
• Sample ECDIS client application with source code
• Full documentation and support during development

Cambridge Pixel is an established provider of radar processing and display components, with many successful installations in commercial and military applications. Solutions are designed for ease-of-addition into existing application software, allowing     system integrators to develop with Windows MFC, or .NET. The SPx ECDIS package provides an easy-to-use software       architecture that allows the radar image to be combined with application graphics, including charts. Solutions are available for simple radar addition into a single PPI window, and for complex multi-radar, multi-window applications including radar pre-processing and recording.

The block diagram below shows how the SPx ECDIS software is used. The components shown in blue are part of the SPx         ECDIS kit. The component is orange is provide by the client application.

SPx ECDIS Coprocessor

The SPx ECDIS Coprocessor is the software module that handles the radar capture, processinf and display. It runs as a        Windows process, which is separate to the client application. The client application communicates to the SPx ECDIS         Coprocessor over a socket interface (process to process communication). A lightweight API is used by the client software to interface with the coprocessor. This interface is used for commands send to the software and for track and status data returned  from the software. The radar image generated by the software is automatically inserted inti the graphics application created by  the application software.

The SPx ECDIS package is supplied with sample application code to illustrate typical applications.

The table below shows the features provided by SPx ECDIS and the features assumed to be provided by the client ECDIS application.

ECDIS Radar Input

The HPx-200C PCI or HPx-200Ce (PCI express) radar input cards are used to acquire primary radar from standard video,       trigger and ACP/ARP signals.

HPx-200C PCI card for ECDIS applications	HPx-200Ce PCI express card (x1 lane) for ECDIS applications

The cards provide significant flexibility in terms of the signal types and voltages allowing a wide range of commercial radars       to be accommodated.

SPx ECDIS Radar Display

Cambridge Pixel is a leading supplier of advanced software-based radar display solutions, having supplied many hundreds of display solutions to world-wide commercial and military applications. Our advanced scan conversion and display solution     provides exceptional accuracy, clarity and fidelity, allowing highly detailed radar images to be displayed.
	Inside SPx ECDIS, the radar scan converter converts the incoming radar      data into a PPI image. It regularly updates the display to permit a smoothly updating radar image to be seen as an overlay/underlay to graphical data    such as charts.
	A software API allows the client application to change the view of the scan converted radar to match the view of the displayed graphics. As soon as a    view change request is received, the scan converter immediately refreshes     the display at the new scale. The colour and brightness of the radar image     can be configured and trail history can be displayed in a different colour to      the most recent video.
	The radar image created by SPx ECDIS may be inserted into a window      created and maintained by the application software. The insertion process supported the presentation of the radar video as an underlay or overlay to existing graphics data. A number of display combining modes are supported     to ease the integration of the radar display with the ENC charts maintained      by the application. As an option, SPx ECDIS can also handle the display of      the charts themselves.

SPx ECDIS Target Tracking

SPx ECDIS has a built-in target tracker, which processes incoming video to extract and track targets. The acquisition process       can either be manual (an API provides a method of specifying the desired range and azimuth of a track) or fully automatic. For automatic track initiation (ATI) the area for acqusition may be configured by a set of lat/long polygons, or else may be defined automatically using SPx ECDIS’s built in world map. This map permits the acquisition to be specified as a distance from the    coastline, for example.

Targets are updated with the incoming radar video using a process of track association and filtering. The resulting track reports, comprising position, speed and course, are reported back to the ECDIS client software or may be displayed automatically by SPx ECDIS.

Cambridge Pixel Ltd
New Cambridge House,
Litlington, Royston,
Herts, SG8 0SS,
UK
Phone: +44 (0) 1763 852749