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In this project, we use several techniques and concepts to simulate software-defined transmitter/receiver systems through an aviation rf receiver use case. This version of the project plays a passive role. The SDR component is an RF receiver node to collect and transform broadcast messages into DIS messages to produce a 'home aviation spotter' awareness system.

The system is composed of a few parts: A software-defined radio setup [1] with a compiled FPGA image and PDU transmitter source code [2] to receive ADS-B data [3] A conversion model for transforming message traffic in the DIS PDU Entity State messages A watch system to visualize DIS broadcasts and alerts when variables are within tolerance for conditions of interest.

This project's video walkthrough[4] and captured PCAP data is available [5].

install gnu radio using conda

'conda config --env --add channels conda-forge' 'conda config --env --set channel_priority strict' 'conda create --name rf_pdu python=3.8' 'conda activate rf_pdu' 'conda install --yes gnuradio=3.8.1'

when not needed

conda env remove --name rf_pdu

install opendis

'git clone https://github.com/open-dis/open-dis-python.git' 'cd open-dis-python' 'pip install .'

pull the Ettus Research repo and configure the Linux rules using the following steps

'git clone https://github.com/EttusResearch/uhd.git' 'cd uhd/host/utils' 'sudo cp uhd-usrp.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/.' 'sudo udevadm control --reload-rules' 'sudo udevadm trigger'

clone, build, and run

'git clone https://github.com/ricklentz/gr-adsb' 'mkdir build' 'cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/anaconda3/envs/rf_pdu ../' 'make' 'sudo make install' 'cd ..' 'cd examples'

ensure the UHD device is connected to the source node

'sudo uhd_find_devices'

make sure the device fpga images are available e.g.

'python ~/anaconda3/envs/rf_pdu/lib/uhd/utils/uhd_images_downloader.py'

build the adsb_rx.grc graph using grcc

'cd ~/Github/gr-adsb/examples/' 'grcc adsb_rx.py'

and run the compiled flowgraph or

'python adsb_rx.py'

build and run with the gnuradio-companion

'gnuradio-companion adsb_rx.grc'

References

1 Ettus Research SDR FPGAs 2 Project Source Code 3 ADSB Nextgen Program 4 Project Overview and Technical Walkthrough 5 DIS7 Entity State PCAP Data Collection