Lower satellite & signal quantities in Skydel is about the PC & GPU

[rburke]

I have been doing numerous training sessions recently and would like to emphasize something about GPUs and PC requirements. This is primarily showing up when testing the GPU speed and modifying the quantity of signals/constellations and satellite counts. Our engineering team is working on some advanced documentation, that will explain this better, but worth posting on the forum since it is causing a bit of confusion.

In the Skydel user manual, there are two tables in PC requirements for "minimum’ pc requirements & “recommended” pc requirements. (link below). You will see that the minimum pc requirements list several GPUs and these all allow Skydel to function. However, if you compare that to the recommended requirements, you will see that it shows a specific GPU (Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070). There are actually better cards out now since the manual was updated last year.

KEY POINT: Skydel relies on the PC & GPU, so minimum requirements will allow the software to function, but will have some limitations when testing multi-frequency/multi-constellation. If you are looking to use the Orolia hardware (example GSG8, Broadsim…), then you will see in the specifications that we exceed these recommendations

Helpful Links:

• 2022 Comparison of GPUs: GPU Benchmarks Hierarchy 2022 - Graphics Card Rankings | Tom's Hardware
• Skydel User Manual showing minimum and recommended PC requirements: Orolia Skydel User Manual
• Definition of CUDA: CUDA - Wikipedia.

[G-Man]

Good information and would be good to have some form of table or chart that estimates capabilities based on examples of GPUs. I also understand that some of the signals (i.e. GLONASS) are different and reflected in PC/GPU performance also. I would have loved to seen a chart like this when originally setting up and look forward to the detailed information from your engineering team

[stephane.hamel]

Tip: If you have insufficient GPU capability, you can use IQ file(s) as the output (instead of the software-defined radio). Skydel can generate an IQ file with all the signals (it can take as long as needed, doesnt have to be real-time) and then use the Advanced Jamming option to playback the IQ file(s). This will take some time and a lot for storage space, but it can get the job done. Moreover, you can automate everything with the API.