YAROC

Yet Another ROC. Radio Online Control for orienteering and other sports that use SportIdent timing (trail running, MTB enduro).

It's as if ROC and jSh.radio had a baby.

Features

Very low latency, very low bandwith. The software adds minimal latency on top of the latency of transport layers. Using a fast medium such as Wi-Fi or LTE allows for latencies around 100 to 200 milliseconds. Bandwidth used during one competition is well bellow 1 MB for each YAROC unit in the forest (allows for cheap IOT SIM cards).
Combines multiple physical layers: radio (LoRa), NB-IoT, LTE, Wi-Fi, LAN. As 2G and 3G networks are being slowly shut down, we need to transition to technologies such as NB-IoT and LoRa in the forest.
Simple integration via a USB connection recognizable by most orienteering softwares. Just plug in a Raspberry Pi in the finish area, connect it to the internet and you are done!
ROC-compatible mode. If you own a ROC device, you can use YAROC instead and it will work almost the same (some features missing).
Generator of fake SportIdent punches: very useful for load testing of the system, for example to determine the right LoRa settings that don't exceed the duty cycle limits.
Radio mesh. When using LoRa, the LoRa devices create a mesh network and transmit punches using other LoRa nodes to the finish area. The mesh can connect to the internet via LTE, so placing one node on a hill makes the whole mesh online.
Run everywhere: Linux, Windows, Raspberry Pi, microcontrollers. We're searching for the right hardware for NB-IoT but in principle this is just a matter of time when it happens.
Open-source

Etymology

YAROC is pronounced phonetically as "jarok", which is Slovak for a small ditch. Thus the ISOM map symbol of YAROC is 108 Small erosion gully. Symbol 108 will be the logo of the project once I have some time to create one.

Installation

Install from TestPyPi. The package will be published to the main PyPi in the spring of 2024.

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install --index-url https://test.pypi.org/simple/ --extra-index-url https://pypi.org/simple

TODO: install from PyPi

Usage

Send punches from an online control

First, create a send-punch.toml file where you configure punch sources and clients for sending the punches.

log_level = "info"

[punch_source.usb]
enable = true

[punch_source.fake]
enable = true
interval = 8

[client.mqtt]
enable = true

With a config file present, we are able to run send-punch:

source .venv/bin/activate
send-punch

Send punches using LoRa radio

TODO: add meshtastic info

Receive punches

First, create a mqtt-forwarder.toml file where you configure the MAC addresses to receive the punches from as well as all the clients that should receive the punches: ROC, SIRAP, serial, etc.

TODO: full list of clients

log_level = "info"

[mac-addresses]
spe01 = "b827eb78912f"

[client.sirap]
enable = true
ip = "192.168.1.10"
port = 10000

[client.roc]
enable = true

With a config file present, we are able to run mqtt-forwarder:

source .venv/bin/activate
mqtt-forwarder

Development

In order to start developing, install also the dev dependencies:

source .venv/bin/activate
pip install ".[dev]"
pip install -e .

The last line installs the package in edit mode, so you can test each file modification immediately.

To use LSPs, also run the following:

pip install ".[lsp]"

sokolpezinok / yaroc

readme