A high-performance, low-latency telemetry ingestion pipeline and simulation suite written in modern C++17/C++20. This project processes high-frequency sensor payloads from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over UDP, aggregates states across thread boundaries concurrently, and displays data on a zero-flicker terminal HUD.
The project is cleanly split into two standalone binaries:
uav_simulator: Simulates live drone physics (altitude, 3-axis IMU orientation, coordinate drift, and battery decay logs) using deterministic random number generators. It pushes packed binary structs over UDP using a fixed-timestep timeline loop to completely eliminate OS clock phase drift.uav_telemetry_ingester: The core low-latency server. It runs an asynchronous network worker thread that reads raw UDP byte streams, deserializes them safely using non-aliasingstd::memcpybitwise copy layers, tracks sensor connection dropouts via hysteresis alerts, and pipes data thread-safely into an in-memory frame buffer.
- A compiler supporting C++17 or C++20 (GCC 9+, Clang 10+, or MSVC 2019+)
- CMake 3.15+
- Linux or macOS (POSIX network layer native)
From the root project directory, run:
cmake -S . -B cmake-build-debug -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug-S .: Specifies the Source directory. This tells CMake where to look for your root configuration file (CMakeLists.txt) and your core source code directories.-B cmake-build-debug: Specifies the Build directory output folder. This tells CMake to isolate all generated build artifacts, temporary caches, and object files into a dedicated target folder. This is an out-of-source build, which keeps your core source directory perfectly clean.-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=: Defines a compilation variable override. Options include:Debug: Fast compiling and exact line-by-line debugging.Release: Maximum code optimization and execution speed.RelWithDebInfo: Production performance balanced with stack tracing symbols.MinSizeRel: Smallest executable binary storage footprint.
cmake --build cmake-build-debugcmake --build: Acts as a unified tool interface that makes your build commands identical across every operating system. It runs your platform-specific builder (likemakeorninja) automatically behind the scenes.cmake-build-debug: Specifies the target folder where your workspace is located. CMake reads the generated configuration profiles here to spin up the compiler, link headers, and output your final executable binaries.
🏎️ Pro Tip: Speed Up Compiles with Multi-Threading
By default, running cmake --build compiles your files sequentially using a single CPU core. To leverage all your
computer's processors and slash your build times down significantly, pass the -j (Jobs) flag followed by the number
of threads your machine has:
Auto-detects and maximizes all available CPU cores on your hardware
cmake --build cmake-build-debug -j
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Start the Drone Simulator:
./cmake-build-debug/uav_simulator
Expected console output:
UAV Simulator sending to 127.0.0.1:14550 Press Ctrl+C to stop. -
Launch the Ingestion Server: In a separate terminal window, launch the ingestor engine to read incoming UDP packets:
./cmake-build-debug/uav_telemetry_ingester 14550
Press Ctrl+C in either terminal window to trigger a clean, thread-joined shutdown profile.
To build and execute the automated verification test suite, run the following pipeline:
cd cmake-build-debug
cmake --build .
ctest --output-on-failurecmake --build .This runs the compiler inside your active directory (represented by the . dot)--output-on-failureis a crucial diagnostic flag. By default, ctest runs quietly—it only shows a clean Passed or Failed status line. If a unit test fails, this flag forces ctest to print out the exact console log and assertion errors (like a failed network packet length assertion) straight to your screen so you can debug the code immediately.
