This code is partly based on heavily modified code from the Processing HTTP Client example, this is used to communicate with the rtl-sdr radio that receives the ABSB signals. The plotter is controlled based on code in https://github.com/evil-mad/AxiDraw-Processing, again heavily modified. The data management is based on classes developed in this project and may not store or read any data available in the ADSB signals that were not required for this purpose
The software was developed under Linux Mint, any details below may not work on Windows. MacOS or other Linux variants
To install this code install Processing (if not already installed). If you didn't run Processing already start it and then after running close the application go to your sketchbook folder, normally created in your user directory. Under the "sketchbook" folder create a folder named adsbPlotter_002 (with the number based on whatever file I've uploaded, they have to be the same but I'm not always going to keep this repo perfectly in line with the code so they might be different). Open Processing and you should see this sketch in the sketchbook list. You'll need to do some more setup before it will work fully, see below
To set up the SDR I followed the instructions in:
https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-quick-start-guide/
I installed dump1090-mutability with:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install dump1090-mutability
(other versions which are probably better didn't seem to have things set up to install on Mint, I didn't try to solve these problems)
The SDR is controlled using dump1090-mutability which is installed separately. The ADSB code is launched in a terminal window:
dump1090-mutability --interactive --net
The --interactive flag brings up a formatted list of the aircraft and data that are available at each time
The --net flag broadcasts the available updates through localhost on port 30003, this can be configured in dump1090 if required
For my installation it was not possible to find where dump1090 was outputting the aircraft data that should be in "aircraft.json" - I would have preferred to use this but it didn't work, I don't know why
The control code assumes that you have an EiBotBoard powered plotter like an AxiDraw or NextDraw. However any H-bot, or coreXY plotter with an EiBotBoard will work. If your plotter requires Gcode to work, this code will not do anything for you - the EiBotBoards do not use Gcode, there is instead a low-level command set that they use where motor drive and other commands are sent directly over serial - more details here: https://evil-mad.github.io/EggBot/ebb.html