- Support for IFF radar means developers of air defence land or ship-based radar surveillance systems have cost-effective means of displaying, tracking and fusing returns from both primary and secondary radars
- Cambridge Pixel to showcase primary and secondary (IFF) radar tracking, simulation and display capabilities on stand G104 at Euronaval, Paris Le Bourget, 27-31 October 2014
CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom, October 22nd, 2014 - Cambridge Pixel (www.cambridgepixel.com) a developer of sensor processing and display solutions, has added support for IFF (identification friend or foe) secondary radar to its SPx primary radar tracking, display and simulation software.
This new capability - announced at Euronaval, the naval defence and maritime security exhibition in Paris, France, 27-31 October 2014 (www.euronaval.fr) - will provide developers of air defence land or ship-based military radar surveillance systems with a cost-effective means of displaying, tracking and fusing returns from both primary and secondary radars.
David Johnson, Cambridge Pixel's CEO, said: "We are seeing demand from our customers for increased situational awareness whereby they have a complete picture of everything in the skies, military or commercial air traffic, whether friend or foe. By adding support for secondary IFF radar, we can now provide this total picture and fuse data from primary and secondary radar returns to deliver increased confidence to the surveillance team."
The IFF secondary radar interrogator/transponder system was developed during World War II to help discriminate between friendly and unfriendly aircraft. Unlike primary radar systems that measure only the range and bearing of targets by detecting reflected radio signals, IFF relies on targets equipped with a radar transponder that replies to each interrogation signal by transmitting a response containing encoded data, such as the aircraft's altitude.
Cambridge Pixel has extended a number of its hardware products and software 'modules of expertise' beyond receiving and processing primary radar and to accommodate IFF data:
- IFF video can now be captured using a standard HPx-200 radar input card, decoded to extract the different IFF interrogation modes (e.g. 1/2/3A/C) and then used for display, target tracking and track fusion;
- the SPx Server plot extraction software can now decode IFF video to provide IFF ID and altitude for display and use by the SPx target tracker and SPx fusion modules;
- the decoded track data can also be output in standard ASTERIX CAT-48 format, so an IFF decode-to-ASTERIX option is now available;
- IFF radar video can be scan converted to create a picture of the IFF barcode and overlaid with the decoded IFF data and track location on the operator's display;
- to support development, testing and system integration, Cambridge Pixel's SPx Radar Simulator software is now able to generate IFF video in ASTERIX CAT-240 or as radar signals (using the HPx-300 card);
- a single SPx Radar Simulator can be configured to simulate multiple primary and secondary radars, with full control over which targets generate a primary and a secondary signature.
"We believe that these enhancements will be attractive to integrators developing air defence applications and looking for an open, modular and affordable solution to displaying, tracking and fusing both primary and secondary radar video," added David Johnson. "As our solution is predominantly software-based, we are extremely competitive and we also offer optional source code licensing for extension, localisation and long term support, which means that customers are not locked into a black box solution."
Cambridge Pixel's IFF radar tracking technology is part of its hardware-agnostic SPx suite of software libraries and applications which provide highly flexible, ready-to-run software products or 'modules-of-expertise' for radar visualisation, radar video distribution, plot extraction and target tracking. Cambridge Pixel's engineering team has decades of experience of developing complex radar processing and display systems for naval, air traffic control, vessel traffic, Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS), security, surveillance and airborne radar applications.
Cambridge Pixel is exhibiting at Euronaval (stand G104), Paris Le Bourget from 27-31 October and showcasing its latest radar tracking, simulation and primary radar display software, including its SPx Server software showing display and target tracking from the Kelvin Hughes SharpEye™ radar.
Media contact:
Martin Brooke (for Cambridge Pixel)
Martin Brooke Associates
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 882174
Email: [email protected]
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