HPx Series Radar Interface Cards (PCI, PCIexpress, PMC form factors)

The HPx Series of Radar Interface Cards from Cambridge Pixel includes the HPx-250, HPx-200, HPx-200e and HPx-200C cards - see table below. These cards can be provided with a low-level board support library for Windows and Linux, or else may be used with the SPx Development library or fully-featured server software for radar network distribution, processing, target tracking and radar recording.

HPx Product Family
Model	Form-factor	Status
HPx-250	PMC	Active
HPx-200	PCI Full height, half length	Active
HPx-200e	PCI express Full height, half length	Active
HPx-200C	PCI Full height, half length	Active (ECDIS applications only)
HPx-200Ce	PCI express Full height, half length	Active (ECDIS applications only)
HPx-100	PCI Full height, half length	Not for new projects (replaced by HPx-200)
HPx-150	PMC	Not for new projects (replaced by HPx-250)

The HPx-200 is a flexible, cost-effective PCI-based primary radar acquisition card that captures and processes one or two analogue or digital radar video signals. When used with the SPx radar processing library it is possible to build radar distribution servers and integrated display solutions rapidly and cost-effectively. Or, if you have your own processing software, HPx-200 is the ideal capture solution.

The HPx-200e provides identical functionality to the HPx-200 in a PCI express (1 lane) form factor,.

HPx-250 (which replaces the HPx-150 from September 2011 for new projects) provides a similar set of capabilities on the compact PMC form-factor. The PMC board may be fitted to a compact PCI (cPCI) or VME processor card for a rugged embedded solution.

The SPx radar processing library is an extensible toolkit of radar-specific functions that can be linked together to form a processing chain. Using this library, radar video can be processed to remove clutter, interference and enhance gain prior to network distribution and scan-conversion. Custom functions are easily incorporated into the processing chain.

Radar Capture

The HPx cards interface to analogue or digital radar signals, and provides a flexible mixing capability to allow a combination of the inputs to be captured.

The cards can be configured to handle a wide range of signal types, including differential and single ended with signals up to 60V.

The dual analogue input videos are captured at up to a 50 MHz sample rate using high-precision analogue to digital converters at 10 or 12 (HPx-200, HPx-250) bits resolution. The captured video can be optionally down-sampled to reduce the data rate before transferred across the PCI bus using high-speed DMA. On the host computer, the compatible SPx driver for Windows or Linux (other operating systems supported on request) is coupled into the SPx processing library to provide a full complement of radar processing functions.

An on-board Virtex FPGA provides data processing and control and offers capability for expanding the data processing functions for customised applications.

Architecture	Form factor	PCI (half-length) Interface (HPx-200, HPx-200C, HPx-100) PMC (HPx-250, HPx-150) PCIexpress (half length) interface (HPx-200e, HPx-200Ce)
	PCI Bus	32-bit, 33/66 MHz
	Programming	C/C++ software library
	Control	Board support API, SPx Development Library, SPx Server application, RadarView
	Platform	Windows (XP/Vista/7), Linux
	Processor	x86
Functional	Radar Inputs	2 x Analogue ( -5v to 5v), 75 Ohms
		8 x Digital (RS422) with external clock (2 x Digital inputs on HPx-150)
		ACP/ARP (RS422, RS423, or 75 Ohm terminated discrete with opto-coupler)
		Parallel azimuth input (12 bits + clock)
		Trigger (RS422, RS423, or up to 30v, 75 Ohms terminated discrete signal)
		End of range signal (HPx-200, HPx-250 only)
	Radar Mixing	Programmable mixing of analogue and digital inputs
	Gain Control	Programmable gain and offset adjustment control
	Test Generator	Built in analogue and digital test generator
	Return Length	Programmable up to 32 k samples per return
	Bandwidth	25 MHz for each analogue channel
	PRF	100 to 10 kHz
	Scan Rates	Up to 120 rpm
	Sample Rate	Programmable up to 50 MHz for each channel.
	Trigger delay	Programmable range zero trigger delay
	Range correlation	Programmable range decimation
	Output	Digitised radar video on PCI bus
	A to D	12 bit sampling, with optional reduction to 8. (10 bits reduced to 8 for HPx-100, HPx-150)
	General Purpose IO	4 bits of output + 4 bits of input for general control (HPx-100) 3 bits of configurable read/write IO (for HPx-200, HPx-250) (HPx-150 does not support general purpose IO)
Connector	Front Panel	37W D connector for radar video and ACP/ARP azimuth inputs. Parallel azimuth is accessible through header connector on the card (HPx-100, HPx-200) 50W MDR connector for radar and all azimuth signals (HPx-250, 150)
Software	Board Support	Basic board support library for card control and data retrieval. One time cost for this library and no recurring costs.
	SPx Library	SPx Radar processing library with support for scan conversion, network distribution, processing, plot extraction. There is a charge for the SPx Development libraryand then a recurring runtime cost according to deployed features.

SPx Radar Processing

The optional SPx radar processing library (see here) is an extensible toolkit of radar-specific functions that can be linked together to form a processing chain. Using this library, radar video can be processed to remove clutter, interference and enhance gain prior to network distribution or scan-conversion. Custom functions are easily incorporated into the processing chain.

SPx Distribution and Scan Conversion

The captured video may be compressed, distributed or displayed with the optional SPx library software. A complete server application, optionally incorporating radar recording and scenario generation, is built from just a few function calls into the SPx library. For integrated display solutions, the SPx scan-converter is easily connected to the HPx cards driver to provide real-time radar video updates in Windows or Linux/X11.

Puchase Options

The HPx-250/200/100/150 cards can be purchased as OEM cards for integration into your projects. A software driver is available that handles all interaction with the card and presents a programming interface (API) in C/C++. The card is supported under Linux and Windows (XP and Vista) as standard. Other operating systems may be supported on request (consult the factory).

You can expand the processing of the captured radar video using the related SPx software programming library. This provides a set of software modules for many common radar processing functions.

If you need to display radar video under Windows, the optional RadarView application software provides a complete application that shows radar video along with map data and overlays.

Software Support

You can use the HPx cards in your system with the SPx driver providing the API. Additional software modules from the SPx library provide the option to further process the video for network distribution. A radar distribution system with optional record to disk is easily constructed by combining pre-existing SPx objects in the form of C++ classes. The compatible software-based radar scan converter classes provide high-performance PPI, B-Scan and A-Scan display either locally or across a network.

PDF Data Sheets

HPx-200 PCI Data Sheet
HPx-100 PCI Data Sheet (Not recommended for new designs from August 2011)
HPx-250 PMC Data Sheet
HPx-150 PMC Data Sheet (Not recommended for new designs from September 2011)
HPx-200e PCIe Data Sheet
HPx-200C Data Sheet HPx-200Ce Data Sheet (See SPx ECDIS product page here for details of these product options)