Using the RTS Plugin

The RTS Plugin allows the system to receive tracks from the RTS IFF System. The RTS system is based around a radio-linked network of GPS receivers. Vehicles or personnel can carry GPS trackers that report back to a centralised management application through long-range UHF radios. The management server seamlessly integrates with the Navtech Radar Witness software enabling operators to see friendly vehicles and personnel in the GIS map interface, but more importantly this data is correlated with the radar tracks enabling the software to match targets detected by the radar with friendly targets reported by the RTS system. This ensures Witness knows what are friendly targets and what are potential threats which can dramatically reduce nuisance alarms. In addition, having full awareness of the location of all your own staff across a large site provides an unprecedented level of situational awareness. This document covers the installation and configuration of the RTS plugin which enables the RTS system to talk to the Witness software.

The RTS Plugin

Witness Canary supports integration with many different types of external systems through the use of plugins.

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

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

On this page:

Configuring the RTS 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 ICD001 section, as illustrated below:

Example of ICD-001 Plugin Configuration

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Config>
  <Plugins>
    <RtsInterface>
      <PluginConfig>
        <RtsServerPort>5000</RtsServerPort>
        <RtsServerIPAddress>10.0.9.250</RtsServerIPAddress>
        <SenderId>100</SenderId>
        <HeartbeatInterval>10</HeartbeatInterval>
        <SpeedFactor>1</SpeedFactor>
        <TagClassifications>
			<TagClassification TagId="Tag124" Classification="Person" ReplacementTagId="45" />
			<TagClassification TagId="Tag122" Classification="Vehicle" />
			<TagClassification TagId="Tag120" ReplacementTagId="Operations Vehicle 1" />
		</TagClassifications>
      </PluginConfig>
    </RtsInterface>
  </Plugins>
</Config>

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:

RtsServerIPAddress

This is used to configure the RTS Server Address.

RtsServerPort

The port used for the server.

SenderId

Sender Id for tracks to appear from

SpeedFactor

Period, in milliseconds, between each batch of tracks being sent. Default is 1000ms (1 second).

HeartbeatInterval

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

TagClassifications

TagId, RTS Tag Id to match on
Classification, optional Classification for this track to appear as
ReplacementTagId, optional replacement Tag Id to use