HPx Radar Interface Hardware FAQs

Choose by the job and the host. The HPx-346 and HPx-700 are standalone units that put analogue radar onto a network; the HPx-410 (PCIe) and HPx-450 (XMC) are input cards for a host computer; the HPx-310 outputs analogue radar signals; the HPx-180 and HPx-550 convert synchro/resolver azimuth.

• Analogue radar to network, no PC: HPx-346. Digitises video, trigger and ACP/ARP and streams ASTERIX CAT-240. Boxed, 19-inch rack-mount and OEM card versions, plus the HPx-346D for two networks.
• Analogue radar to network with plot extraction and tracking, no PC: HPx-700. Embedded SPx Server on an onboard ARM processor, in Distribution, Detection and Tracking versions.
• Input card for a PC or server: HPx-410. PCIe x1 or x4, single or dual stream, 125 MHz 12-bit sampling.
• Rugged or embedded systems: HPx-450. XMC card for Compact PCI, VME and VPX processor cards, single or dual stream.
• Generating radar signals, or converting network video back to analogue: HPx-310. PCIe x1 output card for simulation, test and training, used with SPx Radar Simulator.
• Synchro or resolver azimuth: HPx-180 (PCI/PCIe form factor) or HPx-550 (6U VME), converting to parallel or ACP/ARP azimuth for the input cards.
• Splitting one radar or TV video feed to several consoles: HPx-256 (6U VME), one input to three outputs.

If your radar already has an Ethernet output, you may not need HPx hardware: SPx software reads many network radar formats directly. Not sure? Contact us or try the Solution Finder.

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HPx input hardware takes three signals from the radar: analogue video, a trigger (synchronisation) signal, and antenna azimuth, normally as ACP/ARP pulses. Depending on the product, azimuth can also be parallel or serial data, and synchro/resolver azimuth is converted with an HPx-180 or HPx-550.

• Video: analogue video with 50 Ohm, 75 Ohm or high-impedance termination, sampled at up to 125 MHz with 12-bit resolution on the HPx-410 and HPx-450 (100 MHz on the HPx-346). The HPx-410 and HPx-450 also accept 8-bit digital video with clock, mixed with analogue if required.
• Signal types: single-ended, open-collector or RS-422 differential, with opto-coupled inputs for noise immunity. The HPx-346 and HPx-410 accept single-ended voltages up to 60 V.
• Azimuth: ACP/ARP on the HPx-346, HPx-410, HPx-450 and HPx-700; parallel azimuth on the HPx-410 and HPx-450; serial azimuth, including RADDS RDS II (MIL-STD-751B), on the HPx-450; ACP/ARP or serial data on the HPx-700.
• Synchro/resolver: the HPx-180 gives parallel azimuth to an HPx-410 or HPx-450, or emulated ACP/ARP for cards such as the HPx-346; the HPx-550 gives emulated ACP/ARP on VME systems.
• Optional inputs: end-of-range (HPx-346, HPx-410, HPx-450), ship’s head (HPx-346) and NMEA for North correction (HPx-346).

Radars with an Ethernet output need no HPx hardware: SPx software receives their network video directly. See Supported Radars or contact us about your radar.

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Almost always, yes. Cambridge Pixel supports more than 80 radar models: analogue radars connect through HPx radar interface hardware, and radars with a network output connect over Ethernet using SPx software, which reads ASTERIX CAT-240 and formats from Terma, Simrad, Navtech, Furuno, Raymarine, Garmin and others.

HPx hardware such as the HPx-346 and HPx-410 supports radars from Furuno, Kelvin Hughes, Terma, JRC, Koden, Sperry, Raytheon and specialist military radars, and radar-specific interface cables are available for many of them.

Our Supported Radars page lists radars we know customers have interfaced to, with pages for makes such as Furuno, Simrad and Raymarine, but there are almost certainly many others. If your radar is not listed, contact us for advice.

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Yes. Cambridge Pixel’s HPx radar interface hardware can connect to the “sub display” output of Furuno FAR-2xx8 series radars.

Furuno is one of the radar makes supported by the HPx-346 and HPx-410, and radar-specific Furuno interface cables are available. See Furuno radars for other supported models, or contact us to confirm the right cable for your installation.

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Use an HPx-346, connected either to the Sperry radar’s transceiver or to its DCU. The transceiver’s signals are directly compatible with the HPx-346 using cable P/N 346-800; the DCU’s signals need some conditioning and a different radar input cable.

Sperry radar output is bespoke, but the same HPx-346 enclosure is used in both cases. Sperry is among the radar makes supported by HPx hardware, and Sperry Marine radar-specific cables are available.

Contact support to discuss the options for your installation.

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Yes. The HPx-346 connects to a radar’s analogue video, trigger and ACP/ARP outputs, digitises the video and streams it over Ethernet as ASTERIX CAT-240 or other formats. The HPx-346 is a small standalone unit, configured through a built-in web interface.

• 100 MHz sampling; PRFs up to 16 kHz and scan rates up to 120 rpm.
• Single-ended (up to 60 V), open-collector or RS-422 differential inputs; 50 Ohm, 75 Ohm or high-impedance video input.
• Optional lossless compression, plus video processing including STC/FTC filtering, dynamic thresholding, sector blanking and azimuth offset.
• Available as a boxed unit, a dual-card 19-inch rack-mount unit, an OEM card, and the dual-redundant HPx-346D.

If you also want plot extraction and target tracking at the radar without a separate PC, the HPx-700 adds embedded SPx Server processing.

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Yes. The HPx-700 runs an embedded version of SPx Server on its onboard 64-bit ARM processor, so the HPx-700 can digitise analogue radar, distribute radar video, extract plots and track targets with no host PC. The HPx-700 comes in Distribution, Detection and Tracking versions.

• HPx-700 Distribution: primary radar digitisation and network streaming.
• HPx-700 Detection: adds plot extraction and proximity detection.
• HPx-700 Tracking: adds complete multi-hypothesis primary radar tracking.

Radar stream record/replay, sensor fusion and IFF processing are optional, added by buying further runtime licences. The HPx-700 is configured through its built-in web GUI or by editing human-readable configuration files, and the web GUI can add functions later.

The radar input is pin-compatible with the HPx-410, so existing HPx-410 radar cables can be used: a 37-way connector takes one or two radars, with video, trigger and ACP/ARP or serial azimuth. Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports carry the web GUI, radar video, plots and tracks, in SPx, ASTERIX and NMEA 0183 TTM formats. The HPx-700 is supplied as a small standalone unit with an external mains PSU, or board-only for OEMs.

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Yes. The HPx-346 can send radar video onto the network as a multicast stream, normally in ASTERIX CAT-240 format.

The HPx-346 packs the digitised video into UDP packets, fragmented automatically if required, on a 1000BASE-T Ethernet output, with optional lossless compression. ASTERIX CAT-240 is an open standard, so the stream can be decoded without special software, for example in the free RadarView-240 viewer. The HPx-346 is also fully supported by SPx software and the SPx Development Library.

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Yes. The HPx-346D is the dual-redundant network version of the HPx-346. The HPx-346D has two independent Ethernet interfaces and sends network radar video onto two networks simultaneously.

A dual-network version of the HPx-346 OEM card is also available. See the HPx-346D announcement or contact us for details.

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Yes. The HPx-310 radar signal output card, driven by SPx software, converts network radar video back into analogue video, trigger and ACP/ARP signals, for example to feed legacy equipment that has an analogue radar interface.

The SPx software accepts many Ethernet radar formats as input, including ASTERIX CAT-240 and various proprietary formats from radar manufacturers. The HPx-310 then generates the output signals in real time:

• Full-height, half-length PCIe x1 card, supported under Windows and Linux.
• Dual analogue video outputs, ACP/ARP or parallel azimuth output, and a Ship Heading Marker (SHM) output.
• PRF 100 Hz to 10 kHz, including variable and staggered PRF; rotation period 0.25 to 60 seconds.
• Normal rotation, counter-rotation, sector scan and random scan modes; jumper-selectable output voltages.
• Low latency, set by an on-card buffer of typically 100 ms.

The HPx-310 is also used with SPx Radar Simulator to generate simulated radar signals for testing and training.

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Yes. The dual-stream versions of the HPx-410 (PCIe) and HPx-450 (XMC) have two independent sets of radar inputs, so one card can capture two separate radars at the same time. To track targets from both radars, you need two instances of SPx Server.

The two channels of a dual-stream card can be used in three ways:

• Dual independent radars: simultaneous, independent capture of two separate radars.
• Dual redundancy: software-controlled automatic failover from one input channel to the other if the trigger, ACP or ARP signal is lost.
• Dual sampling: one radar sampled at two rates, typically higher sampling at short range for close-in detail and lower sampling over the full range for coverage.

To distribute network video from two independent radars connected to the same HPx-410, use Cambridge Pixel’s HPxToNet program, which manages the two radar sources and distributes two channels of radar video for processing.

The standalone HPx-700 also supports dual radar channel operation.

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“Highest-wins” means that when an HPx radar input card combines consecutive range samples to reduce the data rate, the combined sample takes the highest of the original values, so returns from small targets are not lost.

Combining samples reduces the size of each spoke of data, for example down to 2048 or 4096 bytes. On the HPx-410 and HPx-450 this optional down-sampling happens on the card, before the data is transferred across the PCI Express or XMC bus. Highest-wins is a form of the peak-picking range correlation described in our radar terminology glossary.

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Yes. Typical power consumption is about 2 W for the HPx-180, under 5 W peak for the HPx-346, and about 10 W for the HPx-450.

• The HPx-346’s low power means it needs no special cooling in most environments.
• The HPx-180 takes power from the host computer’s power supply through a standard 4-pin Molex or floppy-drive connector, not from the PCI/PCIe bus.
• The VME cards are powered from the VME P1 connector: the HPx-550 uses the +5 V and +12 V pins, and the HPx-256 uses +5 V, +12 V and −12 V.

Contact us for figures for other HPx products.

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Yes. Cambridge Pixel supplies pre-built radar interface cables for HPx hardware, including generic signal breakout cables and radar-specific cables for radars from Consilium, Furuno, JRC, Kelvin Hughes, Koden, Sperry Marine, STN Atlas and Terma.

This cable range fits the HPx-410 and the pin-compatible HPx-700, and Engineering Application Notes explain how to interface to specific makes and models of radar. The HPx-346 uses its own radar input cables, for example P/N 346-800 for Sperry transceivers.

Contact us with your radar model and HPx product for the right cable.

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HPx radar input cards are supported on Windows 11: Cambridge Pixel generically supports the Windows 11 operating system. The HPx-410, HPx-450 and HPx-310 cards are also supported under Linux.

Each card has a C/C++ board support package or API (C/C++/.NET for the HPx-450), and SPx Server has built-in support for the HPx-410 and HPx-450. The standalone HPx-346 and HPx-700 are configured through a built-in web interface, and the HPx-346 is fully supported by SPx software under Windows and Linux.

For SPx software operating systems, see the platforms and compatibility FAQs.

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From Cambridge Pixel support. The latest HPx drivers for Windows and Linux are free of charge within your warranty period; contact support to request them.

A board support library is also available, giving a C++ class interface to configure the card and capture video, with example code for Windows and Linux. SPx Server has built-in support for the HPx-410 and HPx-450 cards. See support and maintenance for support options.

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Request the manual from the HPx product’s page on this website: use the Request Manual button and complete the short form. For legacy HPx models, contact support to request a manual.

Most HPx product pages also have the datasheet and the “Successful Configuration of HPx Cards” application note: start from the HPx range page. Datasheets for some legacy models are on the HPx legacy hardware page.

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Replace a legacy HPx card with its current equivalent: the HPx-410 PCIe card replaces the HPx-100, HPx-200, HPx-200e and HPx-400e; the HPx-450 XMC card replaces the HPx-150 and HPx-250 PMC cards; and the HPx-310 replaces the HPx-300 output card.

HPx cards are backwards-compatible with previous generations, with the appropriate software support, so upgrading is relatively simple. You will need the correct device drivers, and your application may need to be recompiled against the current SPx library.

Legacy models are no longer available for new projects. Cambridge Pixel does not stock them and generally will not build new ones, because some of the components are no longer available. If you have a particular reason to need a legacy model, or need a legacy manual, contact support. The HPx-550 VME synchro/resolver card is compatible with both the legacy HPx-250 and the HPx-450.

See HPx legacy hardware for the full list and legacy datasheets.

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