The HPx-200 card is an evolution of the earlier HPx-100 PCI card and retains connector, functional and software compatibility through the board support library and SPx library. For most applications, users of the existing HPx-100 card can deploy HPx-200 with minimal changes (although migration to the newer HPx-400e PCIe card is advised where possible).
The HPx-200 interfaces to analogue or digital radar signals, and provides a flexible set of input options to handle a wide range of radar types. A flexible mixing capability allows a combination of analogue and digital inputs to be captured and combined.
The dual analogue inputs are captured at up to 50 MHz using high-precision analogue to digital converters at 12 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, a driver and board-support library for Windows or Linux is available. Additionally, the SPx processing library is available to provide a full complement of radar processing functions including scan conversion and target tracking.
An on-board FPGA provides data processing and control and offers capability for expanding the data processing functions for customised applications.
Input Signals
The HPx-200 accepts radar video, trigger and azimuth signals in the form of ACP/ARP or parallel data. A wide variety of signal types and input voltages are supported and customised versions of the interface are available on request. The card provides a capability to detect missing signals to provide software alarms for loss of triggers or azimuth data.
For use with synchro or resolver signals, the companion HPx-180 PCI card provides a synchro-to-parallel converter.
Board Support Library and SPx Processing
A low-level board support library is available to provide a C++ class interface to configure the board and capture video. Sample code for Windows and Linux is available.
The optional SPx 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 prior to network distribution, scan-conversion or tracking. Custom functions are easily incorporated into the processing chain, allowing an application to be built from a combination of SPx library functions and user-written processing modules.
SPx Distribution and Scan Conversion
The captured video may be compressed, distributed or displayed with the 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. Server applications that capture, compress and distribute radar video on standard Ethernet networks are easily built. Client applications can be built with high-performance software-based scan conversion with Windows or Linux displays.
- PCI Primary Radar Acquisition Card
- Dual analogue video inputs
- Trigger input
- ACP/ARP or parallel azimuth
- Optional synchro input from companion synchro-to-parallel PCI card (HPx-180)
- 50 MHz sample rate
- Programmable pre-trigger compensation
- 8-bit digital inputs with clock
- 12-bit A-to-D for analogue samples
- Wide range of supported signal levels
- Opto-coupled inputs for noise immunity
- Optional end-of-range input signal
- Programmable mixing of analogue and digital videos
- General purpose input/output lines
- Loss of signal detection
- High-speed DMA transfers
- Supported under Windows and Linux
- C/C++ board support package
- Optional SPx processing library for dynamic thresholding, STC, FTC, clutter suppression,plot extraction, scan conversion, compression and network distribution.
- On-board test pattern generator
- Software and function compatible with HPx-100
- Supported with RadarView and SPx Server applications
- Wide range of radars supported including:
- Furuno
- Kelvin Hughes
- Terma
- JRC
- Koden
- Sperry
- Raytheon
- Specialist Military Radars
