Application: Marine Navigation
Quatech Product Used: Quatech QSU2-400 Four Port RS-232/422/485 USB Adapter

All boaters, recreational or business, could benefit from a radar system on their vessel. However, many systems are too large or too expensive for typical boaters to use. One Quatech customer has created a radar system that allows even small boats to benefit from radar functions found on large ships.

This radar system allows even small boats to benefit from radar functions typically found only on large ships. The system begins with a radar transceiver mounted at the boat’s highest point. The transceiver sends the information it has collected to a PC-based navigation station via a RS-422 port added to the system via a USB to serial adapter. The RS-422 protocol was chosen because it is capable of passing high speed data (460.8 kbps) over long cable runs and is not susceptible to shipboard noise. After the information is sent to the PC via the serial interface, a radar image is displayed on the monitor. Boaters can track their own vessels, find fishing “hotspots,” be warned of incoming targets and their positions, as well as overlay radar images on raster and vector charts--a feature unique to this system. Specialized software turns an “off-the-shelf PC” into a robust radar control center.

Quatech's has also created a custom USB to serial adapter for this project, offering both RS-232 port and RS-422/485 ports. The RS-422/485 ports work as described above to transmit the information from the radar transceiver to the PC, while the RS-232 port is used to retrieve serial position information from a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receiver fed into the PC at the same time.