IoT-Enabled Space Monitoring and Satellite Tracking

[meawoppl]

Project:

IoT-Enabled Space Monitoring and Satellite Tracking supported by Helium based communications

Elevator Pitch:

This project will demonstrate how Helium can enable a distributed network of optical observatories to coordinate and report data in a highly resource constrained environment.

Total Fiat Ask:

Grant request of $53,600.

Key Applicant:

Matthew Goodman, MEng Materials Science will be the project leader. Relevant work includes the founding, growth, and exit of 3Scan, a tissue imaging startup. The project leader is working in collaboration with several collaborators to build a network of observatories, collectively called The Exclosure. Initial versions of these have been fabricated and are operating currently in a limited geography.

Contact Information:

• Website
• LinkedIn
• email - matt at exclosure.io

Project Details:

The Exclosure has been working to develop and deploy a worldwide observatory network. This network consists of a large number of small observatories which are globally coordinated to image satellites and other near Earth objects. These observatories autonomously image space during the period before dawn and after dusk to capture images of satellites and refining a model of the objects around the Earth.

For this network to be successful, it is important to place these sensors in remote locations to avoid light pollution and atmospheric aberrations that make optical imaging more challenging. Additionally, sensors need to be deployed at a large number of longitudes for optimal surveying of the night sky. The need for connectivity in a variety of remote and low power environments makes the use of the Helium network an ideal target for this project.

Incorporation of LoRaWAN hardware and support for the Helium network will expand the areas in which these observatory systems can be deployed, and enhance the overall effectiveness of the network. Additionally, this will provide a mechanism by which observatory hosts can be compensated for keeping the client observatories and gateways in working order. This incentive alignment is intended to serve both as a boon to this specific application as well as a general template for the citizen support of environmental sensor networks.

This grant will aid in the development of two key hardware components:

• On Observatory: The observatories will implement, test, and deploy LoRaWAN support into our existing design. Following integration we will test the suitability of bandwidth and latency for the satellite observation application in realistic environments. These will be able to either utilize existing Helium nodes, or rely on gateways provided by the host.
• Support Gateways: Observatory hosts will be given LoRaWAN gateways and support equipment which can be used to connect nearby observatories in the field to the larger internet. This will be operated by the observatory host, who will be incentivized to keep the observatory and gateway up-time high. A portal will be exposed to the host to help understand how to positively influence this figure.
   

Project Phases:

There are three planned phases to this deployment:

1. Construction, integration, and testing of one or more LoRaWAN modules into the current design of Exclosure observatories. Characterization and testing of these devices in local settings. This stage is largely focused on the hardware that makes the use of the Helium network possible. The key outcome of this stage is an integrated and (bench) tested observatory capable of leveraging Helium.
2. Test deployment of one ore more of these observatories with associated gateways. Following this multi month monitoring and optimization of the software employed for data transport. We expect there is a significant amount of work to be done in reducing raw observations into compressed formats suitable for low bit-rate transmission. The key outcome will be realistic data transmission from an observatory over a period of more than a month.
3. Identification and deployment of one or more stations to be uniquely supported by the Helium network. This will likely include very remote stations that rely on Helium for data transport, and solar for power. Ultimately it is our hope that this will be a mechanism that encourages people to build and support observatories in support of the Exclosure project. The key outcome of this stage is the hosting of 3 or more observatories using the Helium network and corresponding compensation flowing to observatory hosts.

Timelines and grant phases matching the above descriptions can be found in the table below:

Milestone - Target Completion Date	Description	Cost (USD)
Phase 1 - Q1 2022	LoRa module integration	$16,300
Phase 2 - Q2 2022	Small initial deployment and testing	$16,500
Phase 3 - Q4 2022	Production Observatories Using Helium	$20,800

Please follow this link for a more complete breakdown.

Project Organization:

The Exclosure is a Delaware corporation which is already sourcing and building the aforementioned observatories. Matthew Goodman will be responsible for the testing and integration of the hardware and software needed for Helium support in the next revision cycle.
All code and hardware developed to support of the Helium integration will be made available under a MIT licence. Similarly all hardware designs will be released in a fashion recommended by the Open Source Hardware Association. The standard for documentation will be so that this will be a used reference architecture for future IoT sensor implementations. Significant time will be spent at each stage documenting best practices and techniques for optimal integration with the Helium network.

Project Significance:

This project will support the DeWi mission and the Helium community:

• Advance IoT-enabled environmental research methods
• Create an open source reference architecture for use by others
• Expand Helium network coverage and utility
• Create a successful example of a complex sensor using the Helium network

[PaulVMo]

Very interesting project. A couple quick questions to help review:

1. To clarify, the data that will be carried over the Helium network is images of the sky? What amount of data are you expecting to move? If you are not aware, lorawan data is priced for very small payloads. $1 USD buys 100,000 24-byte packets (about 40 cents per MB).
2. The exclosure.io site loads with just a static image for me, nothing more. Is there supposed to be more information?

[meawoppl]

Sorry for the lag. Some clarifications:

1. The observatories take images, but it is possible to reduce them to two sets of point arrays:

• float32 starData[nStars][2] star center coordinates for remote astrometry
• float32 streakData[streakPoints][2] center-lines of satellite streaks
• I expect the total size here to be roughly (nStars + streakPoints) * 2 * sizeof(float32) approximately (100 + 20) * 2 * 32 or ~8KB per image. Even at a couple hundred images per night, we are good on that front.

2. We have a new site that is coming up likely mid November. If you email me I can get you either a (fragile) link to the WIP site, or at least our internal documentation.

Please excuse my speaking C in public so crassly 😉

[meawoppl]

I feel somewhat embarrassed in reviewing this that the math I did for packet size was 8x high, as I incorrectly injected sizeof(float32) as 32. At least this error lead to an overestimate...