PacketRaven

PacketRaven is a command-line dashboard that retrieves location telemetry sent by high-altitude balloon payloads. The program is designed to be run during a flight and display information in a terminal user interface (TUI):

Features

• retrieve location telemetry from a variety of sources, including
  • https://amateur.sondehub.org
  • https://aprs.fi
  • a TNC-equipped radio connected via USB
  • a text file containing raw APRS frames
  • a GeoJSON file with point geometries and telemetry
• retrieve balloon flight predictions from https://predict.sondehub.org
• plot variables such as altitude and ascent rate over time
• estimate landing time and location

Installation

Download an executable (packetraven_Windows.exe, packetraven_macOS, or packetraven_Linux) from the latest release.

Note
Alternatively, you may compile the program yourself:

git clone https://github.com/UMDBPP/PacketRaven.git
cd packetraven
cargo build --release
ls target/release/packetraven*

Usage

start

Run your executable from the terminal with the start subcommand and the path to your configuration file:

./packetraven_Windows.exe start examples/example_1.yaml

Instructions for creating a configuration file can be found in the documentation. Example configurations can be found in the examples/ folder:

connections:
  text:
    - path: ~/raw_aprs_frames.txt
      callsigns: 
        - W3EAX-8
    - path: http://bpp.umd.edu/archives/Launches/NS-111_2022_07_31/APRS/W3EAX-8%20raw.txt

You should then see the user interface. Resize your terminal window, or decrease the font size, as needed.

The left and right arrow keys (or Tab and Shift+Tab) cycle through active tabs, and the up and down arrow keys change the current plot (or scroll through log messages).

To quit, press q or Esc.

predict

You can run the predict subcommand to retrieve a balloon flight prediction from a Tawhiri API:

./packetraven_Windows.exe predict "2023-08-16T10:00:00" -- -79 39 5 30000 9

Note
Negative values must be prepended with -- , e.g. -- -79.:w