ICD-006 Plugin

Owned by Marvin Chen (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jul 27, 2022 by Charlotte Dakin-Norris
3 min read

Introduction

ICD-006 plugin enables Modbus protocol communication by creating a Modbus server on the management server machine.

The Modbus specification describes the protocol in detail. RND-S0137 is the document that describes Navtech's implementation specification and provides the detailed register structure.

For customers and integrators intending to use ICD-006, the documents assume a reasonable working knowledge of network communications and the Modbus protocol. They are targeted at technical teams, typically with software development skills, who are integrating the output from Witness into external systems.

ICD-006 Documentation:

  • RND-S0137 - Modbus Server ICD-006 Specification. This is available from Navtech upon request.

  • Modbus Specification

Contents

Overview

When Witness generates events, such as alarms, or processes targets, it passes all this information to the Integration Manager. The Integration Manager is then able to use loaded plugins such as ICD-006 to convert this information into a suitable data format for consumption by external systems. The data is transmitted as the events occur, leading to near-real time reporting.

Due to limitations in Modbus register space, the ICD-006 Modbus plugin will only provide traffic and alarms data for up to 2 carriageways with up to 500 sections and 8 lanes each, and health data for up to 445 radars. For details, please refer to the RND-S0137 - Modbus Server ICD-006 Specification, which is available upon request.

Installing the ICD-006 Plugin

Witness Integration Manager 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 the Integration Manager 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 ICD-006 plugin has been developed to provide a Modbus integration option for highway applications.

The ICD-006 plugin file is entitled Tungsten.Integration.ICD006.Plugin.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.

When installing Witness, in the Choose Components page of the Witness Setup wizard, open Integration Plugin options and select ICD006:

Configuring the ICD-006 Modbus Server Plugin

When the plugin is installed and licensed, a plugin configuration with default settings is automatically generated. The settings can be viewed and edited by enabling the Config Function, then selecting the plugin in Integration Configurations, within the Configuration Tree. Configuration settings will then be available in the Configuration Panel. 

 

The setting options are as follows:

Enable Plugin: When not enabled, the plugin will not start up. If the plugin is already running, disabling the plugin will cause it to stop.

Name: Name of the plugin within the Witness UI.

Port: Port on which to host the Modbus server. Default is 502.

Count Classification:

Carriageway 1: First carriageway to generate Modbus data for. Data for this carriageway will be in the register ranges 20-30 and 1000 - 3500.

Carriageway 2: Second carriageway to generate Modbus data for. Data for this carriageway will be in the register ranges 40-50 and 5000 - 7500.

Safety is everything.