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Introduction to Icarus

Purpose

Icarus is the system that runs on the Raspberry Pi in each node.

Its main purpose is to create and manage recordings of the sky, as well as create and manage recordings of potential events in the sky (bolides, planes, birds, etc).

Key Features

Icarus has many features that make it powerful.

  • Event detection using a simple motion detection algorithm.
  • Archiving of recordings and events.
  • Exposes node information and captured data to Heimdall via a RESTful API.
  • Ability to change recording parameters such as start time and stop time via Heimdall's UI.
  • Structured and comprehensive logging.
  • IoT style connectivity for easier network setup and maintenance.

Icarus System Requirements & Prerequisites

Software

Each node that Icarus runs on should have at minimum the following installed.

Hardware

The nodes are built by a team and are standardized to include the same hardware.
Icarus requires the below hardware to run as intended.

  • Raspberry Pi board (Raspberry Pi 4 Model B is recommended, but more powerful Raspberry Pi boards will work).
  • GPS that GPSd can read and get latitude and longitude data from.
  • Any USB Camera that fits in the node, please be sure to make sure Icarus uses your camera properly.