Radioastronomical observation software radio-observer

Radio-observer is a relatively universal radioastronomical software that is intended to detect anomalous / interesting events in a radio data flow. In case of Bolidozor these are mainly radio bolides.

Radio-observer does not have any interactive graphical output. In principle, it should work as an application complementary to PySDR, which is intended to visualise measured data, including events detected by radio-observer. PySRD receives data via MIDI.

For a more detailed technical description of the software, see wiki MLAB.

Majority of radio-observer’s parameters is defined in a configuration file in JSON format. The config file is expected in ~/.radio-observer.json or it can be specified when starting the software by -c CONFIG_FILE parameter.

The radio-observer has minimum configurable parameters from a command line. The most important is the config file chosen for a detection.

• -c CONFIG_FILE
• -v - version

The configuration file is in JSON format, which has an extended option to use commentaries beginning with // sign. What follows is an example of the file’s format.

{
	"jack_left_port":  "system:capture_1",   // a name of a JACK port that the radio-observer connects to
	"jack_right_port": "system:capture_2",
	
	"configuration": "default",     // a name of a configuration that will be used when starting the programme
	
	"configurations": [
		{
			"key":     "default",   // configuration identificator
			"factory": "pipeline",
			
			"children": [
				{
					"key":     "backend",
					"factory": "waterfall",
					
					"bins":    32768,   // a number of FFT bins
					"overlap": 24576,   // FFT bins overlap
					
					"origin": "TEST-R0", // station’s name
					
					"iq_gain":        0,
					"iq_phase_shift": 0,
					
					"children": [
						{
							"key":     "recorder",
							"factory": "snapshot",

						    	"output_dir": "~/Bolidozor/TEST-R0/snapshots",   // directory for snapshots
							"output_type": "snap", // a displayed file type in the file’s name
							
							"snapshot_length": 60,   // a spectrum snapshot’s length in seconds
							"low_freq":      10100,  // lower frequency limit of the recorded spectrum 
							"hi_freq":       11000,  // upper frequency limit of the recorded spectrum
						},
						{
							"key":     "recorder",
							"factory": "met",      // a displayed type of file with previews of detected meteors in the file’s name (?? zobrazovany typ souboru s nahledy detekovanych meteoru ve jmenu souboru)
							
						    	"output_dir": "~/Bolidozor/TEST-R0/meteors",   // directory for saving detected meteors
							"output_type": "met",   // a displayed type of file with metadata in the file’s name
							"metadata_path": "~/Bolidozor/TEST-R0/data", // directory for saving metadata
                          				"advance_time":     12,   // a time in seconds that will be recored in the record before and after meteor detection (??.který bude sloučen do jednoho záznamu.)
                          				"jitter_time":      1,   // a maximum interval in seconds between two detections - more meteors within this interval will be considered as one
							"low_detect_freq": 10500,  // lower frequency where meteors will be detected 
							"hi_detect_freq":  10700,  // upper frequency where meteors will be detected
							"low_noise_freq":  11000,  // lower frequency limit for calculation of noise intensity
							"hi_noise_freq":    11500, // upper frequency limit for calculation of noise intensity 
						},
					],
				},
			],
		},
	],
}

The commentaries written in the file have only documentary character. For your own config file please use an example in radio-observer repository, which does not include the commentaries.

Every stations has its own specific config file that should be kept during the lifetime of the station. When changing a config file, in fact, a new station is created - e.g. OBSUPICE-R2 station will change to OBSUPICE-R3 station after changing its configuration file, etc.