GPS SATELLITES
TRACKER
A real-time GPS satellite tracking dashboard using data from USB GPS Receivers Docker containers and a lot of coffee and cake
Real-Time Satellite Intelligence
A comprehensive GPS tracking dashboard with 3D globe visualisation, signal analysis, and real world satellite telemetry.
3D Globe View
Interactive Three.js globe displaying satellite positions, orbital paths, and real-time tracking with multiple camera perspectives, zoom and pan controls
Signal Analysis
Real-time SNR monitoring with bar charts, line plots, skyplot radar view, and historical sparkline telemetry for each satellite.
Satellite Directory
Browse all GPS satellites with spacecraft specifications, launch history, constellation block details, and real-time status.
Historical Playback
Time-travel through logged GPS data with a timeline slider, variable playback speeds, and frame-by-frame analysis.
Receiver Management
Track multiple GPS receiver locations simultaneously with coordinate display, error scatter plots, and CEP accuracy metrics.
Real-Time Telemetry
Live SSE streaming of GPS data with auto-refresh, instantaneous satellite position updates, and signal quality monitoring.
How It Works
A five-container architecture: USB serial data ingestion via MQTT, visualised through a Flask web frontend.
USB GPS Receiver
Cheap USB GPS module connected via serial port, outputting standard NMEA 0183 over serial.
Backend Pipeline
Raspberry Pi parsing NMEA data, computing satellite positions, and publishing structured telemetry to MQTT brokers.
Processing Service
Docker based Python processing service producing structured parquet files from the MQTT subscriptions
Web Dashboard
Modern Flask application serving Three.js 3D globe, DuckDB-powered Parquet queries, and SSE streaming for live updates.
Coming Soon
Build or buy a tracking device to stream your own telemetry and geo-location data directly to the server.
Future Hardware Support
Support for the battery powered LILYGO TTGO T-A7670G ESP32 based board with global 4G LTE and GPS.
Try the Live Dashboard
Explore the full GPS tracking interface with real-time satellite data, 3D globe visualisation, and signal analysis tools.
The Project
A weekend hobby project turned experiment in agentic coding — building a personal GPS tracking station from scratch.
System Information
The Story
Inspired by a recent Veritasium video on GPS jamming over Europe and Canada "Something is jamming GPS over Europe. Here's what we found", I decided to kick off a weekend hobby project to build a personal GPS tracking station. My goal wasn't just to log data, but to run an experiment in using agentic coding to help me.
I picked up a cheap USB GPS receiver, fired up my development server running TrueNAS SCALE, and used Google's Antigravity CLI to build a two-container architecture: a backend to ingest USB serial data, and a friendly web frontend. Within three hours and about 50 to 60 micro-revisions through the CLI, I had a working Docker container logging GPS data into hourly Parquet files. I never touched a single line of backend code in that first three house and the code quality was good.
Next up was the WebUI. I built it panel by panel, feature by feature completely through the Antigravity CLI. While the AI nailed vague prompts perfectly most of the time, it also went down some bizarre rabbit holes. I frequently had to step in as the "Senior Dev" to course-correct.
Out of the entire build, only a couple of bugs regarding the time slider defeated the agent, requiring me to step in and manually tweak the code.
I will be updating the website from time to time. If you have any problems please wait a few minutes as I'm probably updating the code and docker container behind the scenes.
Technology Stack
Tracking Dashboard
A full-featured GPS satellite monitoring interface with three interconnected views: 3D globe, signal noise analysis, and satellite directory.
3D Globe View
Interactive Three.js-powered globe with multiple viewing modes:
- Tactical 3D – orbital perspective with satellite positions
- Observer Zenith – view from receiver looking up
- Trajectory – orbital satellite path visualisation
- Time-Space – temporal positioning view
- Error Heatmap – GPS accuracy heat overlay
Signal Noise Analysis
Comprehensive signal quality monitoring tools:
- Real-time SNR bar chart for all visible satellites
- Historical SNR line plots with time navigation
- Signal statistics (avg, max, min SNR)
- Skyplot polar radar view of satellite positions
Satellite Directory
Detailed spacecraft information database:
- PRN identification and spacecraft names
- Constellation block and manufacturer data
- Launch dates and vehicle information
- Real-time status and visibility tracking
Historical Playback
Time-travel through logged GPS data:
- Interactive timeline slider for frame navigation
- Playback at 1x, 2x, 5x, 10x, 20x speeds
- Multi-timezone time display
- Proximity alerts and path limit warnings
Real-Time Telemetry
Live data streaming:
- Sub-satellite latitude/longitude coordinates
- Altitude, elevation, and azimuth angles
- Range-to-receiver distance calculation
- Signal SNR history sparklines
Receiver Management
Multi-receiver GPS tracking support:
- Multiple receiver coordinate display
- GPS error scatter plot visualisation
- Circular Error Probable (CEP) metrics
- Per-receiver historical data analysis
Launch the Dashboard
Visit the live dashboard to explore real-time GPS satellite tracking data.