Skip to main content
Version: Next

Setup & Run Through (Local)

SDR Setup​

The Software Defined Radio or SDR will be collecting data in real-time to create an application that is using real-time data constantly, the Software Defined Radio needs to be connected to a device and the client program needs to be running in order for it to do so. This device could be a personal laptop or a Raspberry Pi. Lets start with using your laptop for simple, easy-to-test set up.

hardware setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM8NkB2nIis

software setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT2WZhKBkRk

  • Software Setup video contains link to download CubicSDR software

K8S Setup​

Kubernetes, often referred to as K8s, is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It provides a scalable and resilient framework for running and coordinating multiple containers across a cluster of machines.

First Time​

  • install docker desktop
  • brew install minikube (and/or enable kubernetes in docker desktop settings)
  • brew install helm
  • helm repo add nats https://nats-io.github.io/k8s/helm/charts/
    • help repo list

Everytime​

  • Open Docker
  • in action column for mykube press play

NATS Setup​

  • NATS is an open-source, high-performance messaging system that provides publish-subscribe and request-reply messaging patterns. NATS can help you to build a distributed system that is scalable, flexible, resilient, and performant, making it a popular choice for cloud-native architectures and microservices-based applications (Chat GPT).

First Time​

(from https://docs.nats.io/nats-concepts/what-is-nats/walkthrough_setup)

  • brew tap nats-io/nats-tools
  • brew install nats-io/nats-tools/nats
  • brew install nats-server

Run the server program​

  • In adsb-nats-master, go to terminal and run the following:
  • minikube start --memory 8192 --cpus 3 --profile mykube
    • note: may need to increase memory allocated in docker desktop to match above
  • minikube profile mykube
    • set minikube (default?) profile to be the custom ‘mykube’ profile we just created
  • export TOKEN=<your token>
  • cd server
  • ./k8s-minikube-startup.sh
    ### output ###
    Installing helm chart...
    NAME: plane-nats
    LAST DEPLOYED: Mon Sep 26 19:34:37 2022
    NAMESPACE: default
    STATUS: deployed
    REVISION: 1
    NOTES:
    You can find more information about running NATS on Kubernetes
    in the NATS documentation website:

      https://docs.nats.io/nats-on-kubernetes/nats-kubernetes

    NATS Box has been deployed into your cluster, you can
    now use the NATS tools within the container as follows:

      kubectl exec -n default -it deployment/plane-nats-box -- /bin/sh -l

      nats-box:~# nats-sub test &
      nats-box:~# nats-pub test hi
      nats-box:~# nc plane-nats 4222

    Thanks for using NATS!
    Waiting 90s for background startup tasks...
    Exposing server node as service...
    service/plane-nats-ext created
    NAME             APP_PORT   HOST_PORT
    plane-nats-ext   4222       30303

    Client Connection URL
            nats://$TOKEN@docker-desktop:30303
    Exposing minikube internal service to host machine. Leave this command running.
    http://127.0.0.1:58973
    ❗ Because you are using a Docker driver on darwin, the terminal needs to be open to run it.
    (leave this terminal tab running ^ )

Dump1090​

Dump1090 is an open-source software package that allows users to decode and visualize aircraft Mode S and ADS-B signals. It provides real-time information about aircraft, including their position, altitude, velocity, and other details, by receiving and decoding data transmitted by aircraft transponders.

first time (installation, etc.)​

steps to install dump1090:

  1. Download from dump1090 from https://github.com/antirez/dump1090
  2. brew install pkg-config
  3. brew install librtlsdr
  4. brew install
  5. make or make LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib (if make doesn’t work)

    1. if those don’t work and you get a lusb error try the below: (may need to point to library location of lusb/libusb)

      cc -g -o dump1090 dump1090.o anet.o -L/opt/homebrew/Cellar/librtlsdr/0.6.0/lib -L/opt/homebrew/Cellar/libusb/1.0.26/lib -lrtlsdr -lusb-1.0 -lpthread -lm

  6. Copy it to /usr/local/bin (sudo cp dump1090 /usr/local/bin)
  7. to check: run /usr/local/bin/dump1090 & make sure it returns data

for linux (ubuntu 18.04)​

  1. Download from dump1090 from https://github.com/antirez/dump1090
  2. sudo apt-get install pkg-config
  3. sudo apt-get install librtlsdr-dev
  4. make

run the program​

  • /usr/local/bin/dump1090
  • can pipe to an output file and run client.py with that, ex:
    • /usr/local/bin/dump1090 > live_dump1090.txt
    • python client -f live_dump1090.txt

Run the client program​

(in another terminal window)

The client program is highly customizable to your own application. In the case of our airplane tracker application, it specifically processes ADS-B packets using the dump1090 software which decodes the data into a more human-readable format, in this case a JSON file.

First Time​

  • pip install -r requirements.txt - first time only

Everytime​

  • export TOKEN=<your token>
  • export NATS_HOST="127.0.0.1:58973"
    • 127.0.0.1:58973 comes from the output ^ after running ./k8s-minikube-startup.sh in the previous step
  • python3 client.py [-f PLAYBACKFILE]
    • if using pre-recorded: python3 client.py -f client-rtl/dump1090_recording.txt
    • python3 client.py -f dump1090_recording.txt

(leave this running)

Run the annotator program​

The Annotator is a module within our data pipeline that is responsible for enriching the processed radio data with additional meaningful information.

First Time​

  • download plane data from this link and unzip the folder
  • Put everything inside the downloaded ReleasableAircraft folder into the aircraft-annotator directory in adsb-nats-master. (Do not put the entire ReleasableAircraft folder in - just everything inside it)
  • cd aircraft-annotator
  • run ./cleanup-data.sh

Everytime​

  • (In new terminal)
    • instructions here are pretty similar to the readme in aircraft-annotator directory
    • export TOKEN=<your token>
    • export NATS_HOST="127.0.0.1:58973"
      • where 127.0.0.1:58973 comes from the output after running ./k8s-minikube-startup.sh in the previous step
    • run program with python3 aircraft-annotator/annotator.py (from adsb-nats directory, or anywhere outside aircraft-annotator directory)
      • or cd aircraft-annotator and python3 annotator.py .
  • (leave this running)
  • (in another terminal)
    • Verify annotations are correct with nats -s nats://$TOKEN@$NATS_HOST sub "plane.>"

Extras & Cleanup​

  • see pods with kubectl get pods -A
  • Clean Up
    • if necessary, switch k8s context (from aws back to minikube) — kubectl config use-context mykube <minikube or mykube>
    • in server directory, do ./cleanup-k8s.sh
    • stop docker
    • in case you need to stop containers — docker stop $(docker ps -a -q) (stops ALL presently running containers)

Misc Notes & Clarifications​

  • note: config-cluster.json is only for running not thru k8s
  • messages passed to NATS is in JSON format with binary

Environment Setup with Ubuntu 18.04​