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Table of Contents
Controlling the Dish
The dish control server program runs on w1xm-radar-1.mitrs.org and is used by all software that controls the dish.
Features include:
- WebSockets-based protocol making use from Python, JavaScript, etc. client programs easy
- Support for multiple coordinate reference frames, as well as automatic tracking of the sky
- Support for coordinates with target velocities, which improves the tracking quality of the motor control loops
- Support for enqueuing commands ahead of time with an “execute-at” timestamp for more precise tracking
- Multiple user access with system for viewing whether a connected user is idle and potentially kicking them
An example Python client library is provided. A web interface is also being written.
The code for the client and server is on MIT GitHub. A public mirror is located here.
Application-Specific Software
Satellite Tracking
The example pointing scripts for the BigDishControlServer software include a small Python program that bridges the WebSocket-based protocol to rotctl protocol, which is used by satellite-tracking software like Gpredict. Note that currently Gpredict/rotctl cannot supply tracking velocities, so the tracking accuracy will be a bit worse.
Radio Astronomy
We use the srt-py software (modified to support our dish control protocol) for J-Lab's radio astronomy work. The code is hosted publicly here.