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Development of the HERMES Ground Station GUI for Antenna Pointing by NEBP Engineering Teams

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Abstract

During the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP), “engineering” teams were charged with live video streaming – a capability that requires reliable line-of-sight radio communication between a stratospheric payload and a ground station several miles below. HERMES is a purpose-built graphical user interface (GUI) designed to track a stratospheric balloon flight and display a livestream from onboard camera(s) in real time. HERMES can receive GPS location data from three independent radio channels simultaneously and, using a weighted filter, calculate pointing angles for the ground station’s antenna. GPS information from two such tracking systems, Iridium and APRS, are picked up by HERMES through the internet, while the RFD-900 payload transmits by line-of-sight to a tethered receiver. The HERMES system was designed with redundancy in mind; should one tracking system fail (or otherwise become unreliable), GPS information from another can be used in its place. In addition, manual controls allow the user to adjust the antenna pointing angles, correct small errors, and/or point at their payloads without any radio input. HERMES includes a suite of visual elements, itemized data-logging, numerous quality-of-life features, and can automatically control a vent to float payloads in the stratosphere. HERMES was launched in open beta in 2023 and officially released shortly before the total eclipse in April 2024. HERMES remains in development, with new updates in the pipeline to allow users to more effectively track their stratospheric ballooning flights and interact with them via ground station telemetry.

Keywords: nebp, eclipse, hermes, gui, pointing, tracking, video, streaming, ground, station

How to Cite:

Cook, J., (2024) “Development of the HERMES Ground Station GUI for Antenna Pointing by NEBP Engineering Teams”, Academic High Altitude Conference 2024(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/ahac.17972