16.1 Introduction

This chapter reviews a number of potential future developments that may lead to changes in civil marine radar system design. As ever, changes are likely to arise from alterations to the conditions that currently prevail. These may be factors internal to the marine radar industry such as technology improvements, or they may be external factors such as regulatory and legislative alterations. It is always impossible to predict the future with a high degree of confidence, but a look back at recent history does tell us that one thing is certain, change will occur. Indeed it is a trend in the World today for change to occur increasingly rapidly. At first sight civil marine radar has not altered greatly since its inception. Closer inspection reveals that (a) regulatory legislation has imposed certain performance demands while somewhat inhibiting variation in design. Additionally (b) there has always been strong competition in the market place which has resulted in much emphasis on price as a discriminator between systems. Consequently, new technology developments that do not reduce system costs have not always been adopted unless prescribed by legislative changes. As a result, the design of marine radar systems has not hugely altered from the original adaptations of military technology...