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Frequently Asked Questions

This page features the frequently asked questions that we receive from our customers related to Cambridge Pixel products and services. If you need help and support, please get in touch with us at: [email protected]

Radar Simulator

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How can I generate simulated analogue radar video? 

SPx Radar Simulator combined with HPx-310 radar output card can generate realistic simulated radar scenarios with radar returns from terrain and moving targets. Analogue radar video is supplied in standard four-wire format: video, trigger, ACP, ARP.

Does the Simulator calculate the detectability of targets, based on radar power and target RCS? Can the Simulator simulate a Furuno radar? 

SPx Radar Simulator is intended to provide a controllable source of realistic-looking radar video. It does not model the RF characteristics of real radars, instead it allows control over high-level settings, such as beam width and pulse length, which may be adjusted until the video picture looks as wanted.

SPx Radar Simulator will account for terrain obscuration and radar end range when generating target video returns. Also, the targets’ RCS values are used to determine the amplitude of their returns as a function of range from the radar.

How can I combine synthetic targets with real radar video? 

SPx Radar Simulator can combine radar video from an auxiliary source with simulated targets. The auxiliary source may be a CPR radar recording file, a network input (SPx or ASTERIX CAT-240 format), or directly from an HPx hardware capture card. When using an auxiliary source, the simulated radar properties such as period and end range will be set based on the auxiliary source.

What can I do if the terrain data available within SPx Radar Simulator is not accurate enough or missing important structures? 

SPx Radar Simulator uses SRTM terrain data by default, which provides reasonable resolution terrain data for the whole world. If you have DTED or GeoTIFF terrain data available then this can be used in addition to or instead of the SRTM data, configured within the terrain configuration dialog. Alternatively buildings may be drawn manually or loaded for Shapefiles to be combined with terrain information, when a static radar is being simulated.

My simulated target is not appearing within generated radar video. How can I find out why? 

Use the visibility status dialog from within the target configuration dialog to debug target visibility issues. If a target is not visible, then one of the indicators within the visibility dialog will be red. A tooltip will be available indicating how to resolve the issue. When multiple radars are being simulated, separate visibility status indicators will be available for each radar.

What options are available for simulating noise within SPx Radar Simulator? 

Various types of noise can be simulated - background noise and near noise within generated radar video, noise in detected target positions, noise in detected target size and noise in measured platform position, course, heading and speed.

How can I view ASTERIX CAT-240 radar video on my phone or tablet? 

You could connect your phone’s web browser to the SPx Radar Web Server if you have a network connection to it.