HPx Series Radar Interface Cards

The HPx Series of Radar Interface Cards from Cambridge Pixel includes the HPx-100 PCI card and the HPx-150 PMC card. Both cards can be provided with a low-level board support library for Windows and Linux, or else may be supplied with fully-featured server software for radar network distribution, processing, target tracking and radar recording.

The HPx-100 is a highly 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-100 is the ideal capture solution.

HPx-150 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 signal 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 dignal types, including differential and single ended with signals up to 30V.

The dual analogue input videos are captured at up to a 50 MHz sample rate (up to 100 MHz sampling is available in our high-resolution version of the card - consult the factory for details) using high-precision analogue to digital converters at 10 bits resolution. The captured video can be optionally down-sampled to reduce the data rate before transfer 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-100)
PMC (HPx-150)
PCI Bus 32-bit, 33/66 MHz
Programming C/C++ software library
Control Programming API or server application, eg with network interface
Platform Windows (XP/Vista), Linux/X11R6 For other OSs consult factory
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)
Parallel azimuth input (12 bits + clock)
Trigger (RS422, RS423, or up to 30v, 75 Ohms terminated discrete signal)
Optional composite trigger on video (on HPx-100 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 64 k samples per return
Bandwidth 25 MHz for each analogue channel
PRF 100 to 16 kHz
Scan Rates Up to 120 rpm
Sample Rate Programmable up to 50 MHz for each channel. Optional 100 MHz sampling in HPx-110 high-resolution variant (consult factory for details).
Trigger delay Programmable range zero trigger delay
Range correlation Programmable range decimation
Output Digitised radar video on PCI bus
A to D 10 bits sampling reduced to 8 bit in processing LUT
General Purpose IO 4 bits of programmable output for general control
4 bits of input for general inputs

(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)

50W MDR connector for radar and all azimuth signals (HPx-150)
Optional Processing library Filtering STC, FTC, through SPx processing library
Gain adjustment Programmable gain and offset adjustment
Display PPI,  A-Scan and B-Scan radar display
Target Extraction Plot Extraction and Tracking (including multi-hypothesis).

SPx Signal Processing

The optional SPx signal 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-100/HPx-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 re-usable 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.

From Sensor To Display

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.

HPx-100 PCI Data Sheet

Download the HPx-100 data sheet (pdf format) here.


 

HPx-150 PMC Data Sheet

Download the HPx-150 data sheet (pdf format) here.


 


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