NetAcquire Publish/Subscribe to Satellite Tool Kit (PSSTK)
The Satellite Tool Kit (STK) is a sophisticated analytical and graphical environment for aerospace applications. The STK core provides an analytical engine that performs advanced calculations and analysis of satellites and other moving objects. Results can be visualized with a wide variety of 2-D graphical displays, including integrated maps. Additional STK add-on modules support specialized analysis, 3-D visualization, and more.
Now you can collect your telemetry/radar data for STK in real-time with NetAcquire Publish/Subscribe to Satellite Tool Kit (PSSTK). A unique new product, PSSTK provides a real-time communications interface between telemetry systems or radar data feeds and Satellite Tool Kit computers. At a fraction of the cost of most data acquisition systems, PSSTK helps you leverage your STK investment by significantly enhancing real-time input/output capability without sacrificing dependability or features. Capabilities of PSSTK include the ability to handle multiple simultaneous streams of input data and redistribute them to multiple computers from a single NetAcquire PSSTK.
Overview
The NetAcquire PSSTK Gateway seamlessly communicates real-time telemetry or radar measurement data from a NetAcquire system to STK. PSSTK provides an intelligent union between STK and the NetAcquire Publish/Subscribe and Data Flow features. When used together with the NetAcquire SIO and NetAcquire Data Flow options, measurements can be continuously extracted from a PCM telemetry stream and communicated directly into STK for analysis and display.
The NetAcquire PSSTK Gateway allows you to view data as it happens and includes built-in support for transmitting real-time ephemeris (position) and attitude data to STK for mission visualization and analysis. The NetAcquire PSSTK Gateway also supports the STK “real-time” mode for dynamic analysis and display. In addition to measurement data acquisition, NetAcquire servers provide high performance data processing, data archiving, and data reduction. This real-time front-end processing capability offloads tasks from the STK system and avoids communicating excessive volumes of raw data.
The NetAcquire PSSTK Gateway is flexible. By supporting parallel processing of multiple simultaneous streams of input data, all your data is delivered right where you need it. Multiple PSSTK instances can each be independently configured, with their own independent data source and independent connection to a running STK system.
NetAcquire PSSTK uses the STK/Connect module to pass measurement data to an STK system. Many configuration options are available, including STK network addresses and data transfer rates. Measurement data is sent to STK as configurable STK data groups, with each group consisting of one or more variables. There are two pre-defined group types for sending ephemeris (position) and attitude data.
Position and attitude data are specially understood by the STK analysis engine. For other kinds of data, the PSSTK Gateway supports the external data type, providing the flexibility to supply any type of real-time measurement to STK. NetAcquire PSSTK provides high-reliability communications by automatically reconnecting when a connection to STK is lost, and by automatically re-subscribing when a publisher is restarted. In both cases, all configuration parameters are re-read, allowing dynamic reconfiguration.
Features
- Leverage – your STK investment with reliable and inexpensive data collection.
- Distribute – data can be published to any number of network machines.
- Extend – no distance restriction; send real-time data over any IP-based network, including the Internet.
- Configure – change all communication parameters from a Web-based graphical user interface; no programming required.
- Archive – selectable local disk archiving for maximum data integrity.
- Optimize – avoid STK communication overload with front-end data reduction.
Related NetAcquire links:
Applications
- Radar acquisition and display
- Range safety analysis
- Real-time satellite tracking and visualization
- Booster launch analysis
- Real-time battlefield visualization