Cambridge Pixel has supplied Marico, an independent marine consultancy company based in the UK, with trackers and radar display software to use as part of its new VTS installation at the Port of Dover.

Marico needed a low cost, flexible and open tracking solution to work with Terma Scanter 2202 and Simrad Halo-6 radars at Dover, which is Europe's busiest ferry port. SPx Server was the perfect solution, interfacing directly with the radars and allowing Marico to get their system operational as quickly as possible.

SPx Server is providing tracks and radar video data into Marico's VTS software, which also uses the SPx scan conversion module to provide a high quality radar PPI display.

Read the full news article on our website here.

We are now supporting Furuno's latest generation of network-based radars, allowing direct access of the radar video for processing, tracking and display within Cambridge Pixel's products.

Support for Furuno radars covers several models, including the popular DRS4D-NXT. Please consult us for details of other supported models.

This development paves the way for the use of Cambridge Pixel's established tracker (SPx Server) with high-performance, affordable Furuno sensors, opening up new options for USV, surveillance and security projects.

For more information about Furuno network radar interfacing see our application note here.

Many security and surveillance projects are seeking to integrate a wide range of sensor information, to maximise situational awareness. Along with AIS, ADS-B data is one of the inputs frequently requested. However, the choice of ADS-B receiving hardware has historically been rather limited. Now though, a new generation of extremely low-cost ADS-B receiver is available, based on digital TV tuner chips.

Cambridge Pixel has added support for the "BEAST" and "AVR" formats typically provided by the software for these dongles into a number of applications, including RadarWatch and ASD-100. This addition allows system integrators to incorporate ADS-B support quickly, easily and inexpensively.

Learn more about ASD-100 here.

Learn more about RadarWatch here.

SPx Server's target tracking capability is enhanced in version V1.82 to support tracking directly from radar video, rather than from extracted plots. When the new mode is enabled, tracks without an associated plot can be updated by direct reference to the radar video. This permits very weak echoes, barely observable in the radar video and not otherwise generating a plot, to be used for the update.

A weighted centroid is calculated to provide the basis of the measurement, with checks to confirm that the video is likely to be target-derived rather than background noise. The new mode can extend the tracking range for small, weak targets which would otherwise be lost when no plot is observed.

In a normal update (top), a plot is extracted and used as the basis of the measurement. For a very weak target (bottom), no plot is extracted but the video in the search gate can be centroided to provide a measurement.

A technical note describing this capability is available here

More information about SPx Server is available here

Cambridge Pixel was very pleased to welcome the Korean Agency for Defense Development (ADD) to our office on 18th April. We were proud to discuss our capabilities and to demonstrate a number of our software products.

ADD is a government funded agency whose remit is to oversee which technology is used within the national defence projects, by domestic contractors. Historically, Cambridge Pixel has enjoyed a significant amount of business in Korea, working with major contractors such as: Hanwha Systems, LIG Nex1 and STX Engine.

ADD were accompanied on their visit to the UK by Mr GG Kim of Acetronix, our long-term Korean partner. To contact GG in Korea please view our contacts page here.