SoftRF SkyView - new WAGA version

[Bumpff Slam]

Here's a new fork of the SoftRF SkyView software.  The SkyView WAGA is part of a Western Australia Gliding Association project to provide low cost PowerFlarm (with ADSB) collision avoidance systems to its members.  35 of these will shortly be installed in the Western Australian fleet, taking Flarm cover to nearly 100% of all gliders and tugs in the State. 

This software builds upon Moshe's excellent MB06B fork.  This version is designed by glider & tugs pilots and tested for use with PowerFlarm transceivers and will work with Classic Flarm.  Most new functionality should work with SoftRF but it has not tested and if it does not work, I'll not be fixing it.

The additional features include: landscape screen orientation option,  Threat Assessment, Threat info (including Comp ID if in OGN database) in the NavBoxes, ‘look-out relative bearing indicator’ (shows pilot where to look - like the Flarm LED rose), priority handling of alarms to the radar display, buzzer coding, bearing & distance to a few hardcoded waypoints (to assist tugs doing aero retrieves), revised voice messages, mode-S and ADSB detection & display (requires Flarm protocol 9 or higher).

Caution:  Like all SkyView displays using the LilyGo T5S board, the time from alarm receipt to visually show alarm info and the 'lookout indicator' on the radar screen is 850-1700ms due to the e-paper screen 'fast' update being slow and blocking access to the screen buffers.  Voice warnings can cause further delays of up to 1400ms before the radar displays alarming traffic.  However, the buzzer works almost immediately an alarm is detected, causes no further delays in the loop and has an irregular sound (it's not Morse Code but I hear  ../--.  IG).  I recommend using the buzzer.

I have also created a traffic simulator using MS Access/VBA which runs on a PC.  It can be used to create and save simulation scenarios as data tables and sends GPS and Flarm sentences via USB->RS232->TTL conversion directly to SkyView serial port.  The PowerFlarm 6x built-in sim sentence tables are included.  It's 'rough but capable' and has proven very useful for development testing.  Who says MS Access is dead!

There's a short intro video here:  https://youtube.com/shorts/o0wNUb2kd4U

Further details and source code (including the Access simulator database) are at: GitHub/bumpff/skyview.  I have not yet posted binaries, so you would need to use Audrino IDE (or similar) to compile and load. I'm new to GitHub and C++ so there's probably room for improvement.

In the code I have left in place a series of Serial.print timing markers which are sent to the SkyView USB port.  This may interest other developers as it enables timestamped capture (eg using RealTerm) of loop events to help optimise the loop performance. 

Acknowledgement: FLARM is a trademark of Flarm Technology AG.

[FrankT]

https://github.com/Bumpff/SoftRF_Skyview

Op maandag 21 april 2025 om 15:00:33 UTC+2 schreef Bumpff Slam:

[Bumpff Slam]

A couple more videos.  The same scenario is shown in :

-  North-Up .  Watch this first.  It is short but gives a clear understanding of the scenario.

SkyView WAGA video 3x aircraft Radar in North-Up Mode

- Track-Up.  This is what the pilot experiences in terms of where aircraft are relative to his straight ahead.  It shows the alarms visually and with buzzer functioning.

SkyView WAGA video 3x aircraft Radar in Track-Up mode

In this scenario, there are 2 gliders circling in their own thermals approx 2.5nm to the west and northwest of ThisAircraft (at centre of radar). Another aircraft appears tracking 225 degrees on a collision course. Initially glider M7 is assessed as the Threat as it is closest. Then JCZ becomes the Threat as it triggers Flarm alarms. The 'Lookout relative bearing indicator' (the large triangles) point to where the pilot should look for the alarming threat. There is a buzzer so listen for it.

Thanks to Nick B for the simulation.

[R. van Twisk]

Hey,

in your readme you point to MOSHES version, which is actually my repository I forked. The correct repository is this one: https://github.com/moshe-braner/SoftRF

Cheers,

Ries

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[Gary Jones]

Could you upload the binary to the repo for us to install and try please? Much appreciated

[Bumpff Slam]

Binaries uploaded.  However, I have not tried flash loading with it as I upload from the Audrino IDE.

I've added a few video links which focus on how it helps tug pilots.

Yesterday, a tug pilot experienced the display showing its first real Flarm Level 2 alarm.  He reported it worked as intended and gave clear indication of where to look.

I've added a document with instructions on how to amend the built-in coded waypoints.  I had intended to read the waypoints from the SD card but have yet to workout how to do that! 

[Moshe Braner]

When you compile it, what flash memory partitioning do you choose?  Hopefully you choose "minimal SPIFFS" (as per the original instructions from Linar).  Then the same binary (made by clicking "export binary" in the Arduino IDE) can be flashed via the Web interface.  The only disadvantage of the "minimal SPIFFS" choice is that the binary is limited to a little less than 2MB (while the flash size is 4MB).  But for SkyView that is not a problem.  (For SoftRF it is, I cannot switch to more recent libraries because the binary is then too large.)

[Bumpff Slam]

Binaries are now compiled using 'minimal SPIFSS'.  Thanks Moshe.