YAROC

Yet Another ROC. Radio Online Control for orienteering and other sports that use SportIdent timing (trail running, MTB enduro).

It's as if ROC and jSh.radio had a baby.

Features

• Very low latency, very low bandwith. Using a fast medium such as Wi-Fi or LTE allows for latencies around 100 to 200 milliseconds. Bandwidth used during one competition is well bellow 1 MB for each YAROC forest unit. This allows you to use cheap IoT SIM cards.
• Supports multiple physical layers: radio (LoRa), NB-IoT, LTE, Wi-Fi, LAN. Low power technologies such as NB-IoT and LoRa are the best solution for remote sport events. The other 3 (LTE, Wi-Fi and LAN) offer minimum latency.
• Simple integration via USB recognizable by most orienteering softwares. Just plug in a Raspberry Pi in the finish area, connect it to internet and you are done!
• ROC-compatible mode. If you own a ROC device, you can use YAROC instead and it will work almost the same (some features missing).
• Generator of fake SportIdent punches: very useful for load testing of the system, for example to determine the right LoRa settings respecing duty cycle limits.
• Radio mesh. When using LoRa, the LoRa devices create a mesh network and transmit punches using other LoRa nodes to the finish area. The mesh can connect to the internet via LTE, so placing one node on a hill makes the whole mesh online.
• Run everywhere: Linux, Windows, Raspberry Pi, microcontrollers. We're searching for the right hardware for NB-IoT but in principle this is just a matter of time when it happens.
• Open-source

Etymology

YAROC is pronounced phonetically as "jarok", which is Slovak for a small ditch. Thus the ISOM map symbol of YAROC is 108 Small erosion gully. Symbol 108 will be the logo of the project once I have some time to create one.

Installation

Install from PyPI.

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install yaroc

Usage

Send punches from an online control

First, create a send-punch.toml file where you configure punch sources and clients for sending the punches.

log_level = "info"

[punch_source.usb]
enable = true

[punch_source.fake]
enable = true
interval = 8

[client.mqtt]
enable = true
broker_url = "broker.emqx.io"

With a config file present, we are able to run send-punch:

source .venv/bin/activate
send-punch

Send punches using LoRa radio

Follow the official Meshtastic documentation:

1. Flash firmware

2. Configure the radio, we recommend a private encrypted channel.

   1. Use the client role.
   2. Use the LOCAL_ONLY rebroadcast mode
   3. Add a channel named serial, it'll be used to transport punches through LoRa.

3. Attach SportIdent's SRR module to a UART port, a photo will be added later. Configure it using instructions below.

Configure receiving punches over UART

First, enable the right serial mode.

meshtastic --set serial.mode SIMPLE --set serial.enabled true -set serial.baud BAUD_38400 \
           --set serial.timeout 100

Next, configure the correct pins based on the device you own.

RAK4631

We recommend using UART1: RXD1 (15) and TXD1 (16).

meshtastic --set serial.rxd 15 --set serial.txd 16

You can also use UART0: RXD0 (19) and TXD0 (20).

Lilygo T-Beam

We recommend using RXD 13 and TXD 14 for Lilygo T-Beam.

meshtastic --set serial.rxd 13 --set serial.txd 14

Receive punches

First, create a yarocd.toml file where you configure the MAC addresses to receive the punches from, as well as all the clients that should receive the punches: ROC, SIRAP, serial, etc.

TODO: full list of clients

log_level = "info"

[mac-addresses]
spe01 = "b827eb78912f"

[client.sirap]
enable = true
ip = "192.168.1.10"
port = 10000

[client.roc]
enable = true

With a config file present, we are able to run the YAROC daemon called yarocd:

source .venv/bin/activate
yarocd

Development

In order to start developing, install also the dev dependencies:

source .venv/bin/activate
pip install ".[dev]"
pip install -e .

The last line installs the package in edit mode, so you can test each file modification immediately.

To use LSPs, also run the following:

pip install ".[lsp]"

Other projects

• ROC
• jSh.radio
• WiRoc