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The ground infrastructure currently requires that all telemetry data come in as a UDP packet over the network, so all data sources from the vehicle need a way to be sent over a standard network. For SRAD boards on the rocket (e.g. SPICA, NIGEL), we get data over 900MHz RF through the XBees and have a special piece of hardware that converts XBee packets to Ethernet/UDP packets and sends them over the network to the ground station. Some COTS tracking solutions, like the BigRedBee, don't use 900MHz and currently we don't have a way to get that data to the ground station. The BigRedBee uses AFSK modulation to send AX.25 frames containing APRS packets. We have a tool that runs on a standard PC and that will demodulate the AFSK output from our radios and unpack AX.25 frames, displaying only APRS information. We need a program that can read in APRS packets and convert them to UDP packets to send to the ground station.
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