Sharing Radar Data In Real-Time

The following components are needed to share marine radar imagery with others in near-real-time:

  • A marine radar
  • A digitization system that can connect to the radar and record the radar data
  • Software to transform the radar samples and azimuth information to images in Cartesian coordinates
  • A web server to host the imagery and a web page that shows the imagery.

Each time the radar transmits, the digitization system records the intensity of the RF signal that bounces off surfaces at various distances from the radar--surfaces further away being received and measured later than those nearer--as well as the azimuthal position of the radar wheen the RF signal is transmitted. The timing of the measured intensity along with the azimuth of the radar may be thus used to determine the Cartesian coodinates of the recorded samples at each "ray" out from the radar.