A Data Sharing Method for the Serial Ports of Maritime Electronics

Many maritime electronic devices output data through their serial interfaces and usually more than one on-board 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 se -rial ports .With the proposed method ,all application software can access serial data and avoid changing the existing soft -ware ,which will facilitate the integration of computer systems on-board and enhance the operation of the ships .