- Click on an area of the image above for more information on that component.
The Koden RADARpc MDS-63R marine radar system used at OSU's blockhouse at Newport S. Jetty comprises a 25kW antenna-scanner unit (RB179A) with a 9-foot open array aerial (RW701B-09), and a "Radar Sensor Control Box" (MDS-6R). Power is provided by a 28V DC power supply. Also, software is needed to interface with the Radar Sensor Control Box via Ethernet.
This system is also known as the Si-Tex model 25.9. The U.S. distributor and service shop for the Koden radar is Si-Tex Marine Electronics, of Riverhead, NY.
Web resources:
Documentation:
RB179A is the designation for the 25kW radar transceiver/motor and accompanying aerial (4, 6, or 9-foot options). We use the 9-foot aerial, model RW701B-09.
The aerial bolts on to the top of the transceiver. There is no electromechanical connection between the aerial and the transceiver; the aerial is a waveguide and thus the connection is simply a waveguide connection.
The MDS-6R Radar Sensor Control Box (RSCB) allows a computer to control the radar and returns the radar's video to that computer over an Ethernet connection. An external 28 VDC power supply powers the RSCB. In turn, the RSCB supplies power to the radar, in the form of various supply voltages.
The radar is controlled via UDP packets sent over the Ethernet connection. Radar data (video) is also returned to the PC via UDP packets. Command and control of the radar are detailed in the DAQ software section.
There is a cable that comes out of the RSCB (other than the power, Ethernet, or radar connections). This is for the connection of an external on/off switch. We do not have an external switch, so the leads at the end of the cable are twisted together (as in a closed switch).
See an image of the RSCB here. (The power switch cable is not present in this picture.)
Configuration of the Ethernet connection is discussed in the DAQ software section. In particular, use of the DIP switches is located on the page regarding the P-Sea software. However, a few notes should be made about the physical Ethernet jack:
Dennis Trizna created a special circuit board for the RSCB that provides BNC outputs of the video, trigger, heading, and azimuth signals, tapped directly from the radar. This board is connected between the power supply and control boards inside the RSCB.
Images:
This power supply is an Astron LS-10A model. The switch on this power supply should be used to power the Radar Sensor Control Box on or off.
The cable from the power supply to the RSCB is wired according to the chart in the installation manual.
The DAQ PC receives the video, trigger, heading, and azimuth signals from the Radar Sensor Control Box with a special PCI card, the QuadRec, as designed by Dennis Trizna of Imaging Science Research. This the four-port, receive-only version of the Octopus card.
See an image of the Quadrec here.
Connections to the Quadrec card and its accompanying extra slot plate are as shown in the following diagram:
Note the presence of a GPS connection. This is not currently used, but may be used in furture iterations of this setup.
In order to preform CUDA processing, the DAQ PC has an NVIDIA Quadro 400 graphics card installed in its PCIe x16 slot. This card has a DVI output, to which the monitor is connected.
This Ethernet card allows for a dedicated connection between the DAQ PC and the Radar Sensor Control Box. This means that the Radar Sensor Control Box is inaccesible from the main SWAPnet network. This is a change from the setup that existed until the end of 2010. There is still an IP address allocated to the Radar Sensor Control Box in the SWAPnet
This port is used to connect the DAQ PC to the SWAPnet and, by extension, "the outside world", via the HMSC.
The DAQ PC's IP on this port is 10.5.142.30.
The following are devices that use the USB ports on the DAQ PC:
The keyboard is connected to a PS/2 port. This is because problems can occur when a USB mouse or keyboard is connected during data acquisition. When the system is left to run autonomously, the USB mouse should be disconnected.
The DAQ PC is equipped with a PCIe x1 card with two eSATA ports. This allows for the connection of the external hard drives to the DAQ PC using eSATA (which is faster than USB).
Model: StarTech.com PEXESATA2
We currently use Windplot II from P-Sea, but we plan to emulate the controls from this software by capturing packets with Wireshark and replaying them to the radar.
The wave radar system includes two external hard drives, each in the form of a 3.5" hard drives in an external enclosure (StarTech.com UNI3510U2EB).
Though the external drives are connected to the DAQ PC using eSATA, it is also possible to connect to them using USB. However, an internal cable must be changed:
The header labels may be blocked by the hard drive. To remove or change the drive in the enclosure:
Internet access is provided to the radar system via the HMSC SWAP network. The SWAP network is a wireless mesh network that OSU's research ships use to communicate with each other and the shore. The blockhouse where the wave radar is located is a node in a SWAP network that is based out of the Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC). The blockhouse node is particularly important, as it currently (24Jan2012) is the single point by which various Newport shore stations may communicate with the HMSC. For example, there is a station on Yaquina Head that does not have a direct line-of-sight to the HMSC, so the South Jetty blockhouse is used as an intermediate node. This is important because much of the communications in the SWAP network are with the HMSC, or the Internet, which is accessed via the HMSC. Clearly, the blockhouse node is a single point of failure and a bottleneck for network traffic, so it is very important that the blockhouse radio remain online.
IP and port forwarding information about the HMSC SWAP network is available here: HMSC SWAP Network Monitoring. The link on that page to SmokePing provides detailed information about the uptime of various network nodes. Hosts in the 10.5.142.x range are hosts to note, as they are the hosts that reside at the South Jetty blockhouse (also known as southbeach).
The following is a simple network diagram of the HMSC SWAP network.
Port forwarding is set up so that it is possible to SSH into the DAQ PC. To SSH into the DAQ PC, use port XXXX at IP 128.193.170.1.
This is an 802.11b wireless radio. Its radio IP is 172.28.5.142. Its wire IP is 10.5.142.1.
It may be possible to improve the bandwidth back to the HMSC if the SWAP net antenna can be raised. However, this is currently impeded by the presence of the radar. A possible future idea to address this is to place the antenna on an arm that extends past and above the radar, as shown in the following image.
This switch connects the blockhouse devices to the SWAP net radio. Note that there are other devices in the blockhouse that use this network, besides the radio and radar system. Previously, a separate laptop and the Radar Sensor Control Box also connected to this switch, but the laptop is no longer used and the connection between the DAQ PC and the RSCB is now a dedicated link.
If desired, any PC may be connected to this switch (with DHCP enabled) and access the Internet.
