CIE Components in Electronics
Cambridge Pixel, a developer of sensor processing and display solutions, has unveiled its Secure-X family of software modules. Secure-X is designed to help engineers developing radar and camera security solutions to quickly and cost-effectively integrate disparate sensor types into their security surveillance solution and so reduce development time and cost.
Secure-X provides a toolkit of proven, best-in-class software building blocks for radar and camera interfacing, processing and display with modules for radar acquisition, processing, scan conversion, tracking of radar and video targets, fusion, recording and display. Secure-X is also available as a ready-to-run surveillance application that integrates radar and video cameras with threat display, recording and target tracking – with optional source code for extension, localisation and long-term support.
Commenting David Johnson, Cambridge Pixel’s managing director, said: “We are seeing increasing demand for integrated radar and camera surveillance solutions in border and perimeter security, and for asset protection. One of the big advantages of Secure-X is that the customer stays in control as they can buy the ‘modules of expertise’ they need to support their surveillance solution, or, if required, a complete application.”
A recent example of this, according to David Johnson, is engineers in the Kelvin Hughes Surveillance business. They needed software components for their new CxEye security display, and with pressure on time and budget turned to Cambridge Pixel for software modules for radar acquisition, display, multi-hypothesis target tracking, fusion, camera control, map display and control functions.
“A key objective with the Secure-X software is to provide software modules that permit integration of disparate sensor types into a processing and display framework,” added David Johnson.
“Separating the processing and display from the specifics of the hardware allows the best sensor to be chosen for each application with minimal changes to the application software.”
The latest addition to the Secure-X family is the VTx Server, which provides target tracking from camera video. In a typical situation, targets may be automatically acquired from a radar and then passed to the video tracker for frame-by-frame tracking. The video tracker, which is software-based and accelerated with GPU processing, analyses the video data frame-by-frame to determine the motion of a target of interest. The output may be used to display a target position or move a camera to keep a target of interest in the field of view.
The Secure-X software family is based on components from Cambridge Pixel’s established SPx and SPx-AV software modules, which are widely deployed in military and commercial applications, including security and C2 systems. These modules are provided as C++ classes that can be built into a Windows or Linux application. Secure-X interfaces to many standard radars including Kelvin Hughes, Terma, Blighter, Navtech, JRC, Simrad and Raytheon as well as to video and related sensors.
