USB Radar for Notebook PC

[Murat Akturk]

Hi Friends.
I am looking for a radar system to use with notebook pc.
Is there a usb radar system in the market?
Does anybody knows something like this?
I have a bluetooth gps connected to my pc and I can use the notebook as chartplotter. Is same thing possible for radars?
For example a usb radar dome???? in this way I can use the computer as radar display.
If you have any information about this I would like to hear it.
I searched the forum but I could not find anything.


Best Regards and Good Sailing

Murat

[goboatingnow]

The answer is no. There are some radars capable of being hooked up to pc but not via USB.

Dave

[Murat Akturk]

I understood Chinese produces everything How did they missed something like this Strange There are AIS devices for notebooks but I think there is no need in the market for something like this.

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

The answer is no. There are some radars capable of being hooked up to pc but not via USB.

Dave

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Murat Akturk

I understood Chinese produces everything How did they missed something like this Strange There are AIS devices for notebooks but I think there is no need in the market for something like this.

The reason is the market is tiny so few what this solution most just go out avd buy a standard off the shelf setup with a display.

Dave

[Murat Akturk]

Yes. You are totally right.

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

The reason is the market is tiny so few what this solution most just go out avd buy a standard off the shelf setup with a display.

Dave

[S/V Alchemy]

I want a radar with a stand-alone display that can ALSO convey that display to a PC-based chartplotter, either as an overlay or as a side by side dual display.

It is sometimes difficult to get manufacturers to confirm this, because they usually sell multi-function displays as well as standalone radar displays, and would really prefer to sell the cruiser both at a fat profit.

[familycruisers]

Its not usb, but it straight dome to pc. It has a built in interface that uses the ether net port instead.

Marine Radome Radar | PC Radar, Antenna for Yacht & Boat
I saw one other UK company that was the same idea, but it wasnt the one I found during this search. Wierd the brits are the only ones i see developing this niche.

[nwdiver]

I think part of the reason no radar to laptop is small market but also good (some free) GPS chartplotter solutions for a laptop are very new (2-3 years) and getting better daily.
Someone will develop a radar dome>generic black box>USB>computer sooner than later, I would imagine several garage types programmer engineers are working on it now figuring out the signal from the dome and the software on the computer needed to interpret it, it would sell for $400-500 a pop immediately, imagine your radar overlaid on your charts on a 21 inch external monitor through your laptop at a price much less than $5000-7000, that would be nice.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by familycruisers

Its not usb, but it straight dome to pc. It has a built in interface that uses the ether net port instead.

Marine Radome Radar | PC Radar, Antenna for Yacht & Boat
I saw one other UK company that was the same idea, but it wasnt the one I found during this search. Wierd the brits are the only ones i see developing this niche.

Sorry that's a nobeltec radar. , pelagic is just a distributor.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by nwdiver

I think part of the reason no radar to laptop is small market but also good (some free) GPS chartplotter solutions for a laptop are very new (2-3 years) and getting better daily.
Someone will develop a radar dome>generic black box>USB>computer sooner than later, I would imagine several garage types programmer engineers are working on it now figuring out the signal from the dome and the software on the computer needed to interpret it, it would sell for $400-500 a pop immediately, imagine your radar overlaid on your charts on a 21 inch external monitor through your laptop at a price much less than $5000-7000, that would be nice.

Actually SIMRAD have confirmed they intend to develop APIs for their equipment so that should open up that range of equipment in time.

Dave

[nwdiver]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Actually SIMRAD have confirmed they intend to develop APIs for their equipment so that should open up that range of equipment in time.

Dave

If they offer the info needed first they will see a burst of sales for their Rad Domes when the 3rd party solutions hit the market. If they control the Dome market then it will trickle down to all their gear. They are a very progressive company so I can see them being first and others making their equipments’ programming more complex to make it harder on the 3rd party developers this is old school contain the client sales, but has been changing as of late.
I do know a friend who bought a $2300 high end 17 inch laptop to use for navigation so he didn’t need to buy a $1000 chartplotter, he says the laptop has other uses but I know it lives on his boat tucked away in the nav station while he uses an iPad for 99% of his computer usage. Sometimes free software is a false economy.

[goboatingnow]

I think SImrad are taking quite a risk, though it's unclear how independant each piece of their system will be. For example you may need a SIMRAD mfd to get at the radar api.

I don't think the laptop/ consumer electronics Pc/low no cost software will ever be much of a player in small boat electronics. It too small and specialised to have the necessary volumes

Dave

[xymotic]

Currently, the only way to do it is to use nobletec or a Furuno navnet system.

HOWEVER you can make a target on a stand alone radar, and it will track that target and send the position via NEMA, and you CAN get that into a laptop via USB or Bluetooth.

So you can kinda-sorta use radar on a ipad or laptop, but it won't give you the actual sweep/return of the antenna.

[gjorgensen]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Actually SIMRAD have confirmed they intend to develop APIs for their equipment so that should open up that range of equipment in time.

Dave

They already opened the interface up some time back, but by "open" they mean pay them a fairly steep license fee and they'll enable you to add support to your program. I don't know whether they provide a binary library or simply provide you an API and possibly decryption keys if the interface is encrypted. I would guess that it must stay proprietary, which means it could only be implemented in a closed source fashion. Nick added support for Simrad broadband radars to Expedition around a year ago, but I don't know if he every actually offered it on the market. I understood that the per-unit license cost charged by Simrad was on the order of $1,000, so there was essentially no customer interest at the time.

The other package you regularly see is the RadarPC package from Si-Tex (Koden). The Nobeltec, Rose Point, and other similar radars are actually the Koden system. Again, they charge a fairly heavy fee for access to their radar, which is above and beyond the radar itself.

The bottom line is that the major manufacturers are probably building most of their (probably not very large) margins into their MFDs. At $1500 retail there can't be much margin built into a radar transceiver. They are not going to gut their own MFD business by offering the radar antennas cheap. The only way you'll see that is if someone in the sensor/transducer business like Airmar or Maretron, or some other business altogether, decides to hop in. At a potential worldwide market size of maybe a few thousand units per year I'm not holding my breath.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by xymotic

Currently, the only way to do it is to use nobletec or a Furuno navnet system.

HOWEVER you can make a target on a stand alone radar, and it will track that target and send the position via NEMA, and you CAN get that into a laptop via USB or Bluetooth.

So you can kinda-sorta use radar on a ipad or laptop, but it won't give you the actual sweep/return of the antenna.

Sorry explain the NMEA thing to me , ?

Ps yiu can't do it with Furuno, unless you use their proprietary software. ( ps raymarines ray tech software also does radar)

Dave