Standalone and Integral ARPAs
Over the past 10 years, the most significant changes to the ARPA systems have been in their design. The majority of ARPAs manufactured today integrate the ARPA features with the radar display.
The initial development and design of ARPAs were stand-alone units. That is because they were designed to be an addition to the conventional radar unit. All of the ARPA functions were installed on board as a separate unit but needed to interfaced with existing equipment to get the basic radar data. The primary benefits were cost and time savings. This of course was not the most ideal situation and eventually it was the integral ARPA that gradually replaced the stand-alone unit.
The modern integral ARPA combines the conventional radar data with the computer data processing systems into one unit. The main operational advantage is that both the radar and ARPA data are readily comparable.
Read more about this topic: Automatic Radar Plotting Aid
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