A Data Sharing Method for the Serial Ports of Maritime Electronics
Le Tang · Journal of Transport Information and Safety · 2014
Many maritime electronic devices output data through their serial interfaces and usually more than one onboard PC software programs need such data.However,the unique access characteristic of each device prevents directing share access from a single serial interface.This paper presents a software solution to this type of problem.The solution is to use pairs of virtual serial ports and an in-house software to forward the data from a physical serial to multiple virtual serial ports.With the proposed method,all application software can access serial data and avoid changing the existing software,which will facilitate the integration of computer systems on-board and enhance the operation of the ships.