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WVURAIL / gr-radio_astro

This package provides GNUradio OOT modules and grc flowgraphs that fascilates Radio Astronomy Observations with software defined radio devices.
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airspy gnuradio gr-radio-astro grc radio-astronomy sdr

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gr-radio_astro

This package provides GNUradio OOT modules and grc flowgraphs that facilates Radio Astronomy Observations with software defined radio devices.

There are two flavors of this projects:

  1. NSF Integrate and Detect softwares that allow for HI measurements and also event detections from cosmic ray detections, developed by Dr. Glen Langston. See here and the lightwork memo series for more details.
  2. DSPIRA software developed for and by High School Teachers part of the NSF funded RET program called Digital Signal Processing in Radio Astronomy (DSPIRA) at WVU university from the summers of 2017 to 2021. For more details visit the webpage and the companion website called dspira-lessons that has lessons, guides and more material help one to use radio astronomy in a high school classroom. This material is designed by the High School teachers part of this program.

Installing from Source

  1. Install GNUradio

    1. Install gnuradio external python dependencies and SDR drivers by typing the following and hit enter: 
      sudo apt install gnuradio gr-osmosdr airspy python3-h5py python3-ephem git cmake liborc-0.4-dev -y

  3. To clone the repository:

    git clone https://github.com/WVURAIL/gr-radio_astro.git

  4. Switch to the gr-radio_astro directory: cd gr-radio_astro

  5. Make a build directory: mkdir build, and then move to it: cd build

  6. Then run the following in the build directory:

      cmake ..
  sudo make
  sudo make install

    Additional Steps for setting the proper Python environment:

  7. Edit your .bashrc file and add this to the bottom to set Python path: export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages:/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages:$PYTHONPATH

  8. Additionally you can create appropriate symbolic links

    1. Check which python is the installed version of GNURadio by opening gnuradio-companion in a terminal window and click on Help --> About and noting the python version on the dialog box that opens.
    2. Go to the following by typing: cd /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages or cd /usr/local/lib/python3.9/dist-packages for the appropriate python version.
    3. Type ln -s /usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages/radio_astro

Running from a bootable USB Flash Drive with preinstalled software:

Instructions to set up a persistant USB flash with preinstalled software drive are here

TODO: Update for 3.10 below the instructions are for 3.8

Installing on a Raspberry Pi.

Supported Raspberry Pi Devices

All devices must have RAM greater than 4GB

  1. Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
  2. Raspberry Pi 400

Installing Ubuntu image with radio astronomy preinstalled on a Raspberry Pi

This image requires a minimum of 16GB of space on the SD card.

  1. Download the image here
  2. Unzip the .zip file.
  3. Use Raspberry Pi Imager to install this image.
    1. Insert SD card into your card reader on your computer
    2. Open Raspberry Pi imager.
    3. Click Choose OS, and choose Use Custom.
    4. Select the correct image file downloaded in step 1 and 2 from your system.
    5. Click Choose storage and select your inserted SD card.
    6. Click write.
    7. More info here and a video
  4. Insert SD card to Raspberry Pi and power it up.
  5. The default user name is pi, with password raspberry. Change the password after first boot.