Installation

The following steps show how to install all the required software and the packages including the satrot applications.

Installing Qt

Download the source from Qt website for the offline source which is better because it downloads everything including examples to help you start with it. You could also use the online version from the apt package manager.

NB: Make sure you install all the dependencies from here

Install the program by running it from the downloaded folder using the following commands.

    chmod +x qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.14.1.run
    ./qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.14.1.run

Install Qt on raspberry pi 3 after installing all the dependencies and also wiringpi for the drivers

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get qt5-default qtcreator wiringpi

Installing GNURadio on Raspberrypi 3

After installing all the dependencies from here, you can go ahead and install gnuradio

sudo apt-get install gnuradio gnuradio-dev

after it has installed, we have a couple of other steps to do to ensure or RTL-SDR is recognised and works well.

Set access to USB devices: Plug in the RTL-SDR device and check its ID with lsusb command. You will see something like:

Bus 001 Device 004: ID **0bda:2838** Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL2838U DVB-T
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp. SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

look for the ID of the RTL.SDR device like 0bda:2838. Next, open and edit the rules file:

sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/20.rtlsdr.rules

...and add this line to it:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bda", ATTRS{idProduct}=="2838", GROUP="adm", MODE="0666", SYMLINK+="rtl_sdr"

NB: If you are using several RTL-SDR devices, you can add several lines to this file.

Increasing swap space: This step is not compulsory, but extra memory is always good for compiling and running realtime devices. You can "expand" new memory by just increasing the swap space if you have extra space on your memory card. Open the configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/dphys-swapfile

look for default value in Raspbian, which is: CONF_SWAPSIZE=100

Change it to: CONF_SWAPSIZE=1024 and restart the service that manages the swapfile on Rasbian:

sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile stop
sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile start

Verify by using the following command: free -m

Installing SatRot Main-GUI

To install the SatRot Main-GUI program on Ubuntu, issue the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/Ahmad138/SatRot.git

# To install main-GUI on ubuntu
cd satrot/Software/SatRot-GUI
mkdir build && cd build
qmake ..
make

# To run the program 
cd GUI-Main
./GUI-Main

NB: If you are facing issues building using 'make', look at this issue and see if it applies to you. if not, open a new issue and ask for help.

Installing Satrot RotorDriver-GUI

To install the satrot RotorDriver-GUI program on Raspberry pi 3, issue the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/Ahmad138/SatRot.git

# To install RotorDriver-GUI on raspberrypi 3
cd satrot/Software/RotorDriver-GUI
mkdir build && cd build
qmake ..
make

sudo make install
cd RotorDriver
./RotorDriver

# To run tests, cd into each module test you want to perform and run it after build. for example:
cd build/apiTest
make check