Joystick Radar Control : Implementing joystick control of a radar rig using single board micro-controllers by emulating generic mouse and keyboard commands

Abstract: The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration provides tests and evaluations of military Aircrafts and their systems as well as provide services in connection with military exercises. Testing aircraft against a radar antenna and training crews with this radar is part of that offering. The radar is deployed in a container rig and controlled by a computer running Windows 2000. The current option to control this computer is a mouse and keyboard. In this thesis, a system will be designed that is able to improve the ease of use of this rig while minimizing any need to modify the radar rig’s already established hardware and software. The resulting system designed used a commercially available joystick and off the shelf single board micro-controllers in combination with a graphical user interface to supply the radar rig with a converted input from the joystick in the form of mouse and keyboard commands, simplifying the end-user experience.