README

MiniKakofonix

(c) Copyright 2013-2017 Filip Jonckers.
This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

This program is capable of subscribing to an UDP multicast feed containing (live) radar data
in Eurocontrol Asterix format.  The received UDP frames are stored in a recording file.
A new (raw) Asterix recording file can be created every x minutes.  The previously recorded
Asterix filename contains date and timestamp.
This tool can be used to do continuous 24/7 Asterix multicast recordings.

This program was written in my own free time at home and is available to anyone who wishes
to use it within the limits of the license.
Always nice to hear if you use it, any feedback much appreciated.

My personal requirements:
- subscribe to a single multicast group address
- listen for multicast UDP frames on a specific UDP port
- write received UDP frames to a binary recording file
- after a specific time period (block time) create a new recording file
- time stamp a recording file with start and stop time

Based on my original Kakofonix program written in C some years ago
which used pcap library to capture multiple Asterix multicast radar feeds.

MiniKakofonix is only capable of recording a single multicast UDP stream, for multi radar
UDP feed recording Kakofonix is required which can listen to multiple UDP multicast feeds.
(This requires a thread pool with a separate thread for each multicast feed)

Project Maintainer:
Filip Jonckers
ATM Expert - DGO/ACC-APP/DSS Belgocontrol
Twitter: @FilipJonckers
Linkedin: http://be.linkedin.com/in/filipjonckers


Tags
----
Asterix, Eurocontrol, radar, modeS, SASS-C, multicast, multilateration, surveillance, A-SMGCS, ADS-B, ACAS, TCAS


Build instructions
------------------

The Ant build.xml file contains the required tasks to compile and create the jar file.
By default a complete compile and build is done by running Ant in the root directory:

$ ant

The ./dist directory will contain a zip file with the latest release.


How to use
----------

Run the jar using the java runtime environment:

$ java -jar minikakofonix.jar

simply provide the required parameters:

$ java -jar minikakofonix.jar -h

will show all the available options

$ java -jar minikakofonix.jar -i eth0 -w rec -b 60 -m 239.6.6.10 -p 60010

will subscribe to UDP multicast address 239.6.6.10 via interface eth0 and UDP port 60010
and will record all the received asterix data into a file prefixed with "rec"
a new recording will be started at the next block of 60 minutes (on the hour) and the
previous hour will be saved in a timestamped file like: rec_20130605_2032_2100.ast



What is ASTERIX?
----------------

ASTERIX stands for All Purpose STructured Eurocontrol SuRveillance Information EXchange.

It is an ATM Surveillance Data Binary Messaging Format which allows transmission of
harmonised information between any surveillance and automation system.
ASTERIX defines the structure of the data to be exchanged over a communication medium,
from the encoding of every bit of information up to the organisation of the data within
a block of data - without any loss of information during the whole process.
ASTERIX is a EUROCONTROL Standard which refers to the Presentation and Application
layers (layers six and seven) as defined by the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI)
Reference Model (International Standards Organization (ISO) Standard 7498).

Transmission of ASTERIX coded surveillance information can make use of any available
communication medium, for instance Wide Area Network (WAN), Local Area Network (LAN),
Internet Protocols (IP), etc as those belong to lower layers. 

Considering that there is information common to all systems (for instance position,
Mode-A Code and Mode-C Code information), ASTERIX specifies minimum requirements
at the Application level, so as to ease data exchange between heterogeneous applications.
The communication between two different systems (even located in different countries)
is thus made possible, based on a core of commonly used surveillance related data,
transferred in the same way by the ASTERIX Presentation layer.
For the transmission of information related to a specific application, data items
are grouped in ASTERIX Categories. Up to 256 categories can be defined.
The definition of these categories and their composition is managed
by the ASTERIX Maintenance Group (AMG).



Resources
---------

Eurocontrol Asterix Protocol:
http://www.eurocontrol.int/services/asterix



Copyright
---------

This file is part of MiniKakofonix.

MiniKakofonix is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

MiniKakofonix is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with Foobar.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.



Copying
-------

Free use of this software is granted under the terms of the GNU General
Public License (GPL). For details see the file `COPYING` included in this distribution.