A lightweight approach to simulate a 2D radar coverage for virtual maritime environments

Virtual simulation systems present a cost effective way of training the mariners to navigate a ship in a realistic maritime environment. To offer a better training session, a need arises to model other tools and components as a part of the virtual simulation system, such as radar, sonar and telescope, that are used to navigate a vessel in the real world. Taking a light-weighted approach, we developed a virtual radar coverage for the Vidusayura virtual maritime learning environment. It simulates an actual marine radar, which gathers information of its surroundings from the virtual environment with which a trainee naval officer interacts. The impact and the effectiveness of the virtual radar system, in terms of the trainee, is also analyzed against a real radar simulation system.