ALAMEDA, Calif., 30 Dec. 2009. Engineers at Prism Maritime in Virginia Beach, Va., used display technology from RGB Spectrum for the U.S. Navy's Situational Awareness Bridge Display System (SABDS), a sophisticated video system that consolidates critical data to a centralized display.
Utilizing RGB Spectrum's QuadView XLRT multiviewer, SABDS assimilates electronic information from a range of systems, including: command and control, threat detection, navigation, surveillance, and air control, RGB Spectrum officials say. Integrating this data into an exclusive display console eliminates redundancy, displacing an excess of single-purpose displays.
RGB Spectrum's multiviewers were first installed in 2001 aboard the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) for the carrier fleet's prototype deployment. The U.S. Navy contracted Prism Maritime, LLC – a maritime support services provider, specializing in government projects, and based in Virginia Beach, Va. – to design and install the SABDS upgrade.
"The initial SABDS upgrade phase, required deployment of ruggedized equipment that would display real-time imagery from a variety of sources, to simultaneously track multiple systems," says Keith Hurban, Director of Engineering for Prism Maritime." One of the challenges we encountered, involved processing the ship's various and exotic video signals, as well as radar imagery, poorly supported with the hardware being utilized. Through extensive research, we determined that RGB Spectrum's QuadView XLRT multi-viewer was the only available product that provided the necessary signal support requirements, durability, and flexibility for this application".
SABDS includes two QuadView XLRT multi-viewers, with each multi-viewer supporting as many as 16 inputs from a wide range of tactical and navigation sources. The shipboard system converts all composite and S-video signals to RGB. The SABDS QuadView processors are supplied with multiple types and resolutions of RGB signals. Imagery includes navigation radars, electronic charting, flight deck cameras, electronic status boards, ship status displays, surveillance video, workstation computer graphics. and ship's television.
The ruggedized QuadView XLRT is designed for mobile and harsh environments, including tactical operations centers, naval and airborne consoles, and military vehicles. It incorporates a number of structural augmentations for dependable performance under severe conditions, including a stiffened enclosure, front loaded air filters, and enhanced air flow.
Prism Maritime LLC works with the Navigation Steering Control In-Service Engineering Agency (NAVSSES Philadelphia, Code 966) to increase situational awareness and integrate today's most advanced equipment into the Navy.
