As one of my kid's teachers used to say, 'math is everywhere'.
It's all basic trigonometry, and a great example of how that stuff is actually useful. When you acquire a target, the radar tracks that blip on the screen, and calculates it's course and speed based on it's observed movement. It all sounds very military, but it's a really critical feature for navigation and collision avoidance. But that is jumping ahead.ĪRPA let's you 'acquire' a target. The difference, as best I can tell, is that ARPA can automatically acquire targets within a specified area, where with MARPA they need to be manually acquired. For the sake of simplicity, I'm just going to refer to it as ARPA. MARPA stands for Mini Automated Radar Plotting Aid, and is a poor man's version of ARPA (Automated Radar Plotting Aid). Top of the list among the bugs (all of which I will share) is erratic MARPA performance. One of the driving reasons for removing all the Simrad gear from my boat was the radar and associated bugs.
