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 Sx ECDIS Radar Kit

The SPx ECDIS Radar kit provides a set of components for primary radar video acquisition, display and tracking, 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, image mixer and target tracker in a cost-effective, flexible package. The SPx ECDIS package provides:

• Radar input using the HPx-200C (PCI) or HPx-200Ce (PCI-express) card
• Radar scan conversion (PPI) and overlay with charts/graphics
• Target tracking with auto or manual track initiation

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.

Feature	SPx ECDIS Provides	System Integrator Provides	Notes
Radar Sensor
Radar interfacing			Interface can be with PCI or PCIi card (HPx-200C or HPx-200Ce), or support for network video from certain radars.
Radar PPI Display
ENC Chart Display			SPx ECDIS can display ENC charts, or the application can handle chart display.
Chart + Radar Mixing			SPx ECDIS can combine the radar image with the application's graphics, or can provide a radar bitmap for the application to handle.
Automatic Target Tracking
User Interface
Alarm generation (PPC, CPA, PAD)
Navigation Tools and Route Planning
Type Approval
AIS Receipt and Display
Radar Video Record and Replay
Interface to GPS/Gyro
System Computer (PC) and Display
Cabling To Radar Sensor

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 ENC 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.