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Asterix Cat-10 is a network communication protocol used extensively in airports and air traffic control for passing track information. Asterix is a suite of message protocols that are used for communicating various air control information of which Cat-10 is specifically for communicating tracks.
The protocol is used over standard UDP connection. There are two documents that describe the protocol in detail. The primary document, Asterix Specifications Part 1 covers the protocol, including message structure and message framing for all Asterix messages. The second document, Asterix Specifications Part 7, covers details on forming and reading a CAT-10 message.
Info

For customers and integrators intending to use Asterix Cat-10, the documents assume a reasonable working knowledge of UDP network communication. They are targeted at technical teams, typically with software development skills, who are integrating the output from Witness into external systems.

Technical Overview

When Witness processes targets into tracks, it passes all this information to Witness Canary. Witness Canary then converts this information into a suitable data format to send to external systems.


The data is transmitted as the events occur, leading to near-real time reporting.


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CAT-10 Specification:


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The CAT-10 Plugin

Witness Canary supports integration with many different types of external systems through the use of plugins. These are stand-alone software libraries which are dynamically loaded by Canary and contain code which knows how to convert the Witness data into the required format for the external system. Navtech Radar can easily develop bespoke plugins to interface with a specific type of equipment or application. The Asterix CAT-10 plugin has been developed to provide integration to a common standard using in Airport system communication.

The Asterix plugin file is entitled Witness.Plugin.CAT10.dll and must be present in the Witness Plugin folder which is inside the main application folder. 

Tip

The plugin can be selected during setup and will automatically be installed in the correct location.

Configuring the CAT-10 Plugin

When the plugin is installed and Canary starts, the plugin configuration settings are saved to the PluginConfiguration.xml file. This file is located in the Witness main application folder. To change the settings this file should be opened in a text editor, such as Notepad, however we would recommend an editor which is XML aware, such as Notepad++.

Once the file is open, locate the CAT10 section, as illustrated below:

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languagexml
themeRDark
titleExample of CAT-10 Plugin Configuration
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Config>
  <Plugins>
    <CAT10>
      <PluginConfig>
        <TimerTick>500</TimerTick>
        <SystemIdentificationCode>1</SystemIdentificationCode>
        <UdpServer RemoteIPAddress="239.192.86.0" Enabled="True" Port="8600" />
        <SendCAT10>True</SendCAT10>
        <ListenCAT10>True</ListenCAT10>
        <CAT10SourcePositions>
			<SourcePositions>
				<Sic>23</Sic>
				<Sac>0</Sac>
				<X>10</X>
				<Y>49</Y>
			</SourcePositions>
		</CAT10SourcePositions>
        <HeartbeatInterval>0</HeartbeatInterval>
		<BufferTracks>False</BufferTracks>
      </PluginConfig>
    </CAT10>
  </Plugins>
</Config>


Info

Once you have made changes to the plugin configuration file then you must restart the Canary application / service for the new settings to be applied. No other modules need to be restarted.

The setting options are as follows:

TimerTick

Timer used to control sending status messages and cleaning up buffers in milliseconds. A CAT-10 status message is sent on this timer if Sending CAT10 is enabled.

SystemIdentificationCode

Unique number identifying the Witness system in an Asterix network. SIC Must be smaller or equal to 255. Witness cannot share a SIC with another system.

UdpServer

  • Enabled - Should always be set to true
  • RemoteIPAddress - The IP address used for clients to access the UDP data. Only Multicast IPs (starting in range 224 to 239) are supported.
  • Port - The port used for the UDP communications.

SendCAT10

  • True - Sends all confirmed tracks in Witness as CAT-10 messages to the UdpServer address.
  • False - Tracks are not sent out.

ListenCAT10

  • True - Listens to CAT-10 messages on the udpserver address and port and inserts tracks detected as friendly tracks into Witness.
  • False - Does not listen to CAT-10 messages.

One or both of ListenCAT10 or SendCAT10 should be true.

CAT10SourcePositions

Source positions are used to configure displacements of origins between systems.

  • List of displacement locations based on system SIC and SAC for other systems.
  • SIC: System Identification Code - uniquely identifies each systems within the airport.
  • SAC: should normally be 0 for other systems in the same airport.
  • X: System origin is located east from witness origin by X meters.
  • Y: System origin is located north from witness origin by Y meters.

This does not need to be configured for systems who's origin coincides with Witness origin.

Tip
titleExamples

Example 1: A multilateration detection system has it's origin set at the airport control tower. Witness is configured with origion the control tower as well.

In this case, we do not need a SourcePosition record for the system.


Example 2: A single detector also sends CAT-10 messages relative to its own location - 150 meters north and 200 meters west from the control tower. This detector is assigned SIC153.

For this detector we will need a CAT10SourcePositions record of:

			<SourcePositions>
				<Sic>153</Sic>
				<Sac>0</Sac>
				<X>-200</X>
				<Y>150</Y>
			</SourcePositions>
 

External System tracks should be within Witness radar coverage to appear in Sentinel.


HeartbeatInterval

  • Period, in seconds, between each heartbeat being sent to every connected client. Default is 10 seconds.

BufferTracks

  • Buffer tracks to send in batches on TimerTicks

Custom specification for Data Item I010/020

Spare bits in Data Item I010/020 "Target Report Descriptor" Structure of Second Extent is re-purposed in Witness CAT-10 to enable additional classification information.

The I010/020 item will always be included in Witness CAT-10 track reports and will always include at least 3 octets - 1 octet in the standard First Part and 1 octet in a First Extent as per CAT-10 specification and 1 octet in the Second Extent with the spare bits used for Witness classification as per specification below:

Structure of Second Extent:

Info

Note: the second extent is the 3rd byte of the data item


CAT-10 Original specification:

87654321
SPI000000FX

SPI = Special Position Identification

FX = Extension into next extent


Witness CAT-10 repurposed specification

87654321
SPIClassificationFX


Classification = 6 bit unsigned integer (0-32) indicating the classification:

Bit representationnumeric valueclassificationbyte value
0000011Any2
0000102Unclassified4
0000113Person6
0001004Debris8
0001015Boat10
0001106Vehicle12
0001117Aeroplane14

Vehicle and Aeroplane classifications can also be obtained from the standard Target Report Descriptor First Extent as per CAT-10 specifications.


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