Kraken SDR Passive Radar

Please consult our Passive Radar Wiki page at https://github.com/krakenrf/krakensdr_docs/wiki/08.-Passive-Radar for more information.

Quickstart Raspberry Pi 4 Image

The passive radar software is preinstalled on the DOA PI4 Image at https://github.com/krakenrf/krakensdr_doa/releases/

By default this image runs the DOA direction finding code on boot.

To change to the passive radar code, connect a monitor and keyboard (or SSH in), and edit start.sh in the home folder. You will need to comment out the DOA code run lines, and uncomment the passive radar lines.

Make sure to change the heimdall preconfig file to pr_2ch_2pow20, pr_2ch_2pow21 or pr_2ch_2pow22

Quickstart VirtualBox Image

See our Wiki for more information about our VirtualBox Image and where to download it https://github.com/krakenrf/krakensdr_docs/wiki/10.-VirtualBox-and-Docker-Images#virtualbox

Once you are in the OS to start the passive radar code, open a terminal and browse to the krakensdr_pr folder. Then run ./kraken_pr_start.sh. Next see the Running heading below.

Manual Installation

This is only required if you are not using the premade images, and are setting up the software from a clean system.

Install the prerequisites

sudo apt update
sudo apt install libfftw3-3
sudo apt install libfftw3-dev

Install Heimdall DAQ

If not done already, first, follow the instructions at https://github.com/krakenrf/heimdall_daq_fw/tree/development to install the Heimdall DAQ Firmware.

Set up Miniconda environment

You will have created a Miniconda environment during the Heimdall DAQ install phase.

Please run the installs in this order as we need to ensure a specific version of dash is installed.

conda activate kraken

conda install pip
conda install quart
conda install pandas
conda install orjson
conda install matplotlib

pip3 install dash_bootstrap_components
pip3 install quart_compress
pip3 install dash_devices
pip3 install pyapril
pip3 install cython
pip3 install pyfftw

conda install dash==1.20.0
conda install werkzeug==2.0.2

Clone the krakensdr_pr software

cd ~/krakensdr
git clone https://github.com/krakenrf/krakensdr_pr

Copy the the krakensdr_doa/util/kraken_doa_start.sh and the krakensdr_doa/util/kraken_doa_stop.sh scripts into the krakensdr root folder of the project.

cd ~/krakensdr
cp krakensdr_pr/util/kraken_pr_start.sh .
cp krakensdr_pr/util/kraken_pr_stop.sh .

Running

Local operation (Recommended)

./kraken_pr_start.sh

Then browse to KRAKEN_IP_ADDR:8080 in a webbrowser on a computer on the same network.

When the GUI loads, make sure to set an appropriate passive radar preconfig ini for the Heimdall DAQ. For example, choose "pr_2ch_2pow21", then click on "Reconfigure and Restart DAQ". This will configure the DAQ for passive radar, and then start the processing.

Please be patient on the first run, at it can take 1-2 minutes for the JIT numba compiler to compile the numba optimized functions, and during this compilation time it may appear that the software has gotten stuck. On subsqeuent runs this loading time will be much faster as it will read from cache.

Use CH0 to connect your reference antenna, and CH1 for your surveillance antenna.)

Remote operation

UNTESTED

Start the DAQ Subsystem either remotely. (Make sure that the daq_chain_config.ini contains the proper configuration) (See:https://github.com/krakenrf/heimdall_daq_fw/Documentation)
Set the IP address of the DAQ Subsystem in the settings.json, default_ip field.
Start the DoA DSP software by typing: ./gui_run.sh
To stop the server and the DSP processing chain run the following script: ./kill.sh

After starting the script a web based server opens at port number 8088, which then can be accessed by typing "KRAKEN_IP:8080/" in the address bar of any web browser. You can find the IP address of the KrakenSDR Pi4 wither via your routers WiFi management page, or by typing "ip addr" into the terminal. You can also use the hostname of the Pi4 in place of the IP address, but this only works on local networks, and not the internet, or mobile hotspot networks.