Radarcape:Software Features Major2

Radarcape Software Features (Major Release 2)

Since March 2017, we provide Major Release 2. Currently this page describes the differences to Radarcape:Software_Features of Major 1, which all are included in Major 2 with only minor changes, but a lot of add-ons and enhancements. Please read across Software_Features for a first overview.

Key Features

This is a brief summary of all new features.

Radarcape MLAT

• high precision location of Mode-S and ADS-B aircraft
• update rate 1/sec
• latency app. 1.5 seconds

New features within Radarcape web interface

• New responsive web design optimized for web browsers on desktop and mobile devices, filter configuration extended to hex id and track length

New features within Radarcape software

• Radarcape is now able to support native piAware from FlightAware in the background as fully featured feeder and can read back MLAT results in order to display them in aircraft list, 2D and KML maps
• Aircaft location and flight data are stored and accessible separately for ADS-B, Radarcape MLAT and FlightAware MLAT
• Full performance feeder for Opensky Network
• Automatic update of flight route and base station database
• BDS register data (Extdata) free of extra charges
• Signal level available converted to dBm

Sharing groups (to come)

• Several Radarcapes can be combined into a sharing network

Support for Planeplotter Mobile

• PPm can be used to display single Radarcape or sharing groups data through local connection or connection using our MLAT server

2 Channel Radarcape

• Antenna Diversity
• Dual Antenna systems

Radarcape Video-Out

• for verification purposes, a buffered video out is available

Radarcape Multilateration Server

Mulitlateration posisiton estimation is possible with at least 3 Radarcape that share a common air space

• High precision MLAT results returning location, speed, heading and vertical rate
• MLAT results are propagated within the private sharing group
• Very low latency: Results are returned once per second with an latency of app. 1.5sec.
• No need for ADS-B aircraft as calibration references
• High accuracy for even a single position estimation, enhanced with a highly sophisticated, adapting Kalman filter.
• MLAT results are also available for ADS-B aircraft, for example to verify their actual position or in case of spoofing
• Server/client connection is authorized and encrypted by TLS key pairs

MLAT server provides data streams in the same way as every Radarcape

Not provided for raw formats, e.g. 10002-10006)

• Any software which reads Radarcape data can read a combination of several on the server

Radarcape Software Features

Sharing Groups (planned)

• A number of Radarcapes can be combined through our server forming a sharing group, e.g. for wide area supervision or local hot spot precision observation.
• Radarcape MLAT results are shared within such a Sharing Group

Fleet Watch

• Filter for specific aircraft supports either ICAO hex codes (e.g. 3c8afb) or aircraft registrations (e.g. D-AQUI)

FlightAware no compromise feed including multilateration results

• FlightAware sharing supported with no compromises
• MLAT results from FlightAware feeder can be read back into the Radarcape in addition to MLAT results from Radarcape network

Location and flight paths of different sources are stored and output separately

• ADS-B, Radarcape-MLAT, FlightAware-MLAT and Sharing Group results may be observed separately
• These data are also available within the JSON data outputs
• A new field was added to aircraftlist.json which contains the location, altitude, heading, speed and vertical rate for each of the location sources

New feeder for Opensky Network

• Opensky network feeder with no compromises

Automatic update of routes and aircraft type database

• Flightroutes database and basestation database are updated automatically (internet connection required), however manual update is still possible.
• Manual upload service for systems without internet

GPS data is provided to Chrony or NTPD

• The Radarcape becomes a stratum 1 time server

Optimized TCP streams

• In order to decrease network load, network streams became buffered

Signal level in dBm

• The signal level at the antenna connector is indicated in dBm
  (note that this is not foreseen for measurement purposes)

Second-of-Day mode selectable

The value range of the second-of-day field in the GPS timestamp is selectable, the current setting is reported in status frame

• legacy mode: value range is 1…86400
• true UTC mode: value range is 0 … 86399

Status Frame 0x35 contents were extended with GPS and UTC information

• Status frames are triggered by 1PPS pulse when GPS timestamps are selected and triggered randomly in case of legacy 12MHz timestamps.
• Status frames contain a valid timestamp
• The signal level value is zero

Byte #0 of the message part contains a mirror of the FPGA switch settings. These settings have direct effect on the raw data ports 10002-10006 and indirect effect due to eventually missing or differently available data to the high level functions:

FPGA switch settings

		'0'	'1'
Bit 0:	Data output mode (port 10002 only)	Binary	AVR hexdump
Bit 1:	Raw data frame types	DF17 only	no pre-filtering
Bit 2:	Timestamps within AVR format	enabled	disabled
Bit 3:	not used
Bit 4:	Timestamp mode	GPS	Legacy 12MHz
Bit 5:	FPGA/USB handshake	disabled	enabled
Bit 6:	1 bit forward error correction (FEC)	disabled	enabled
Bit 7:	Mode-A/C decoding	enabled	disabled

Byte #1 of the message part in GPS timestamp mode contains the offset of the nanosecond timer at the 1PPS event in units of 15.625ns. Normal value range is -3 … +3.

Byte #2 of the message part contains information about GPS

GPS status information

		'0'	'1'
Bit 0:	Antenna status	good	fail
Bit 1:	Tracking at least 1 satellite	true	false
Bit 2:	Tracking at least 3 satellites	true	false
Bit 3:	Time value base	UTC time	GPS time (8sec offset)
Bit 4:	unused
Bit 5:	unused
Bit 6:	unused
Bit 7:	Daysec value range	1 ... 86400	0 ... 86399

Web Interface

New responsive web design

• Optimized for web browsers, mobile devices and tablets

Configuration and filters stored in local browser

• Viewing from different devices can have individual settings, e.g. different map styles and filters

Openlayers Map introduced in parallel to Google Maps

• Supports different map styles based on gmap and Openlayers
• Border of aircraft symbols and color of tracks shows the source of data
  • Black: ADS-B
  • Red: Radarcape-MLAT
  • Green: FlightAware
• Professional Radar map style
  • providing only navigatorial data
  • free of unwanted map contents
  • Track and vector displayed of each aircraft
    • border color is data source: black=ADS-B, red=Radarcape MLAT green=FlightAware MLAT
    • fill style blue=climbing brown=ascending

Changed Output Formats

aircraftlist.json

• The location, altitude, track, vrate and speed given for the aircraft in the base level follows a priority: ADS-B -> Radarcape-MLAT -> FlightAware MLAT, whichever has provided more results during the last 5 seconds
• The values of the currently three location sources (ADS-B, Radarcape-MLAT, FlightAware-MLAT) can be requested in a separate array with an additional URL parameter &select=loc. Each of them contains a field "tsz" for its track length. Base level elements "tsa" and "tsz" were removed
• Value "dbm" was added, which contains the signal level at the antenna connector in dBm. Note: This is not for measurement purposes
• The values itself are formatted as their native data type (integer, string, float). No longer for example floats as a string. Unknown values are marked as JSON 'null'

sorted_aircraftlist.json

• removed without replacement

fligthpath.json

• now outputs a JSON array with the capability to request several flight paths in one call
• used with parameter "&icao=<hex>" will return the flight path by default priority ranking ADS-B -> Radarcape-MLAT -> FlightAware MLAT, an additional parameter "&src=<char>" with char either 'a', 'm' or 'f' will select the flight path from selected location source
• parameter "&icao=<hex>" may be either repeated or either be filled with a comma separated list (e.g. <hex1, hex2>) to request several flight paths
• instead of <hex> it may also contain registratioin, this can be mixed, so for example these are valid requests: &icao=3f1234,D-AQUI or &icao=3f1234&icoa=d-aqui. Using registration requires a loaded aircraft type database and the presence of the aircraft in this database.

mapinfo.json

• contains information about own location and some more

deltadb.csv

• parameter "&loc=" was removed, own location can be read within mapinfo.json
• parameter "&lookback=<seconds>" introduced to look back for a certain amount of seconds