SORTS

Feature list

• Vast library of usage examples
• Quick calculation of passes over a radar system
• Easy simulation of observed variables of hard targets with radar systems (range, range rate, radar cross section, signal to noise ratio, ...) given an arbitrary radar and radar observation schema
• Definition of arbitrary radar control systems
• Definition of arbitrary scheduler systems that manage radar-controllers
• Pre-defined library of radar systems, radar survay patterns, standard radar controllers and schedulers
• Standardized interface to a collection of propagators
• Allows modification of any level of a simulation trough sub-classing the basic models
• Large collection of helper functions for simulation to automate e.g. MPI-trivial parallelization and disk-caching
• Execution time and memory usage profiler compatible with most base models
• Logging compatible with most base models
• Frame transformations implemented trough Astropy
• Time handling implemented trough Astropy
• All time-critical calculations implemented using numpy to accelerate calculation
• Predefined error models such as ionospheric ray bending and coded transmission matched filter errors
• Ray-tracing simulation of radar signals trough the ionosphere using pyglow
• Measurement Jacobian calculation and linearized orbit error calculation and propagation
• Ability to plan measurement campaigns using the output from a scheduler simulation
• Collection of predefined population formats for loading e.g. TLE catalogs
• Correlation algorithms for correlating measurement data to a population
• Input/Output package for writing and reading standardized data formats e.g. CCSDS TDM files
• Large collection of plotting functions for quick visualization
• Interpolation methods for propagation optimization
• ...

Install SORTS

To install SORTS

git clone https://github.com/danielk333/SORTS
cd sorts
pip install .

The installation can be automatically tested if pytest is also installed

pytest

Container

To build the container with podman run

podman build . -t sorts

From scratch

Make sure you have Python >= 3.6

To install Python 3.7 (from the deadsnakes ppa) on Ubuntu 16 (WARNING: This method differs on Ubuntu 18/20)

sudo apt update
sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3.7
sudo apt install python3.7-venv

It is recommended to use virtual environments when installing sorts

python3.7 -m venv /path/to/new/sorts/environment
source /path/to/new/sorts/environment/bin/activate

Now you should be inside the new virtual environment. Check this by

pip --version

And you should see the path to "/path/to/new/sorts/environment".

Alternatively if you want to use pip with Python 3.7 without using venv, the get-pip.py method can be used. WARNING: Using the bootstrap solution will break your current Python 2.7/3.5 pip, It is not recommended.

Now, regardless of the method, you should make sure you have an up to date pip:

pip install --upgrade pip

If you do not have git, install it first:

sudo apt install git

To install SORTS

git clone https://github.com/danielk333/SORTS
cd sorts
pip install .

In case "pyant" or "pyorb" requirements fail on auto-install, run the following commands manually and try again:

pip install git+https://github.com/danielk333/pyant
pip install git+https://github.com/danielk333/pyorb

If you have trouble getting plotts from the examples, you might need to install a GUI-backed to matplotlib like TkAgg

sudo apt install python3.7-tk

and force matplotlib to use that backend by creating a matplotlibrc file ( https://matplotlib.org/tutorials/introductory/customizing.html ) and adding "backend : TkAgg" to it.

Install MPI

Open MPI on Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install openmpi-bin libopenmpi-dev
pip install mpi4py

MPICH on Ubuntu

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install mpich
pip install mpi4py

Install Orekit

Using install script while a virtual environment is active on Ubuntu (from inside the SORTS repository)

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk
./install_orekit.sh

Install Pyglow

Taken from "https://github.com/timduly4/pyglow/"

git clone git://github.com/timduly4/pyglow.git pyglow

cd pyglow/
pip install -r requirements.txt
make -C src/pyglow/models source
python setup.py install

Example

Finding passes over radar system

#!/usr/bin/env python

import numpy as np
import pyorb

import sorts
from sorts.propagator import SGP4

eiscat3d = sorts.radars.eiscat3d

prop = SGP4(
    settings = dict(
        out_frame='ITRS',
    ),
)

orb = pyorb.Orbit(
    M0 = pyorb.M_earth,
    direct_update=True,
    auto_update=True,
    degrees=True,
    a=7200e3,
    e=0.05,
    i=75,
    omega=0,
    Omega=79,
    anom=72,
    epoch=53005.0,
)
print(orb)

t = sorts.equidistant_sampling(
    orbit = orb,
    start_t = 0,
    end_t = 3600*24*1,
    max_dpos=1e4,
)

states = prop.propagate(t, orb.cartesian[:,0], orb.epoch)

passes = eiscat3d.find_passes(t, states)

for txi in range(len(eiscat3d.tx)):
    for rxi in range(len(eiscat3d.rx)):
        for ps in passes[txi][rxi]: print(ps)

For developers

To install developer dependencies

#NOT YET AVALIBLE

To test

pytest

To make doc

To compile the github pages documentation run

git checkout gh-pages
git cd docsrc
make github

Otherwise, one can compile the documentation directly on the current branch by running

git cd docsrc
make html

which causes the output to go into the "build" folder.

When used for publications

A paper and a DOI is underway and will soon be available, for now: please just tell us by email (daniel.kastinen@irf.se) or here on Github.