Radar Receiver

The UconX Radar Receiver software allows a user application to communicate with military and civil aviation radar systems. The product recognizes a number of popular radar data formats, time-stamps each radar message as it arrives, and can provide a single user application with data received from multiple serial lines attached to an assortment of radars.

UconX Corporation has implemented Radar Receiver in a client-server environment using the UconX family of LAN-based, multi-protocol communication servers. The UconX server attaches to your local area network to provide wide-area connectivity for all clients on the LAN.

UconX also supports Radar Receiver on a variety of high-speed SBus, VMEbus and PCI intelligent communication controllers.

A single server or controller can support radar receiver operation on multiple serial links. Or, you can run other UconX protocols, such as X.25 or HDLC ABM, on some links and Radar Receiver on others.

Features.

• Supports CD-2, FPS 117, Marconi 10-Bit, ASTERIX, Thompson-CSF and Modified Eurocontrol radar data formats.
• Client software in source form includes an Application Programming Interface (API), sample application programs, and, for embedded communication controllers, a host device driver.
• LAN-based servers support UNIX and VMS client systems.
• Supports multiple serial lines, which are independently configurable for radar data format, line speed, message size, timeouts and other options.
• Other UconX wide-area protocols can operate simultaneously on the same platform.
• Message transmission and reception in loopback mode can be used to verify correct installation and hardware operation.
• Supports line speeds up to 19,200 bps (up to 64K bps for ASTERIX).
• Received messages are time stamped with a counter value.

Client API.

Radar Receiver includes a simple, easy-to-use API to protocol software running on a LAN-based server or communication controller. The API provides a standard interface to the TCP/IP software or host driver. This makes application programs easily portable among client operating systems as well as the various UconX server and embedded controller platforms.

DLPI Interface Primitives.

For the interface to Radar Receiver, UconX uses a subset of the Data Link Provider Interface (DLPI), which defines a STREAMS-based message interface between a data link service provider (Radar Receiver) and an application program. Applications send and receive DLPI messages, or primitives, using the UconX API.

The following primitives are sent from the application to Radar Receiver:

RDR_ATTACH_REQ

Assigns a radar data format to a serial link.

RDR_DETACH_REQ

Frees a previously attached serial link.

RDR_BIND_REQ

Allocates and configures a serial link.

RDR_UNBIND_REQ

Frees a previously bound serial link.

RDR_CLEAR_TICK

Clears the system time-stamp tick counter.

CD_STATISTICS_REQ, AS_STATISTICS_REQ, TC_STATISTICS_REQ

Connection statistics.

CD_DATA_REQ, AS_DATA_REQ, TC_DATA_REQ

Contains a block of radar data for transmission.

The following primitives are sent from Radar Receiver to the application:

RDR_BIND_ACK

Acknowledges completion of a bind request.

RDR_OK_ACK

Acknowledges miscellaneous request types.

RDR_ERROR_ACK

Reports unsuccessful completion of a request.

RDR_ERROR_IND

Reports an error condition on the serial link.

CD_STATISTICS_ACK, AS_STATISTICS_ACK, TC_STATISTICS_ACK

Provides data transfer statistics.

RDR_DATA_IND

Conveys received radar messages.

Configuration Parameters.

For each individual serial link, the UconX Radar Receiver software package allows configuration of the following parameters:

• Radar data format (CD-2/FPS-117, Marconi 10-Bit, ASTERIX, Thompson-CSF, Modified Eurocontrol).
• Maximum number of messages accumulated before forwarding to the application.
• Maximum time to wait before forwarding received messages to the application.
• Line speed or external clocking.
• Maximum size of a valid radar message.
• Formatting of received data.
• Other options specific to particular radar data formats.

Data Reception.

The Radar Receiver software time-stamps radar messages as they are received on the serial line. Based on configurable parameters, a number of messages may be accumulated before they are forwarded in a single block to the application. A header preceding each radar message specifies the message length, time-stamp value, and serial link on which the message was received.

Data Transmission.

For testing and diagnostic purposes, the Radar Receiver software allows applications to configure a serial link for transmission of radar messages. For CD-2, FPS 117, Marconi 10-Bit and Modified Eurocontrol, the transmitting application sends blocks of data containing pre-formatted radar messages separated by idle characters. For ASTERIX, the application supplies pre-formatted radar data to be transmitted as an HDLC frame. The Radar Receiver software adds the opening and closing flags and appends the CRC. For Thompson-CSF, the application sends radar data, to which Radar Receiver adds sync characters, control sequences and the BCC before transmitting the message.

Statistics.

At any time, a client application can request statistical and state information for its radar connection. The protocol software maintains detailed counts of received messages, line errors, and other events.

Ordering Information: For more information or to place an order, please contact us at (619) 627-1700 or email us at sales@uconx.com . For technical questions about our products, please email us at tech@uconx.com .