Project PECAN, and Western Formula Racing's Telemetry System

A Western Formula Racing Open Source Project

Comprehensive telemetry and data acquisition system for real-time monitoring of formula racing vehicle performance. This system captures CAN bus data from the vehicle, transmits it to a base station, and visualizes it through an interactive web dashboard.

🏎️ Overview

The repository contains the end-to-end telemetry software for Western Formula Racing vehicles, enabling real-time monitoring of critical vehicle systems during testing and competition. The system consists of:

• PECAN Dashboard: Real-time web-based visualization of vehicle telemetry
• Unified Telemetry Software: Onboard and base station software for data transmission

🏗️ System Architecture

flowchart LR
    ECU["Vehicle CAN Bus (ECU)"]
    HAT["Raspberry Pi CAN HAT"]
    EDGE["Raspberry Pi
    Edge Collector"]
    BASE["Base Station Raspberry Pi"]
    REDIS["Redis"]
    DASH["PECAN Dashboard
    (Web UI)"]
    INFLUX["InfluxDB 3"]

    ECU -->|CAN| HAT
    HAT -->|SPI / CAN| EDGE
    EDGE -->|RF| BASE
    BASE --> REDIS
    REDIS -->|WebSocket| DASH
    REDIS -->|Stream / Write| INFLUX

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Data Flow:

1. Vehicle CAN bus messages are read by Raspberry Pi
2. Onboard Raspberry Pi packs messages in UDP/TCP for radio transmission
3. Base station receives RF data and publishes to Redis
4. Redis-to-WebSocket/InfluxDB bridge broadcasts messages to connected clients and InfluxDB 3
5. PECAN dashboard visualizes data in real-time through customizable views

InfluxDB 3 is implemented in a separate repository: https://github.com/Western-Formula-Racing/daq-server-components

📦 Components

PECAN Dashboard (/pecan)

Demo: https://western-formula-racing.github.io/daq-radio/dashboard

A modern React + TypeScript web application for real-time telemetry visualization.

Features:

• Real-time CAN message visualization with WebSocket connection
• Customizable category-based filtering and color-coding
• Multiple view modes (cards, list, flow diagrams)
• Interactive charts and graphs using Plotly.js
• Built with Vite, React 19, and Tailwind CSS

Tech Stack: React 19, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS, React Bootstrap, Plotly.js

📖 Detailed Documentation

Base Station (/base-station)

Python-based receiver system that bridges radio telemetry to WebSocket clients.

Components:

• Redis Message Queue: Central message broker for telemetry data
• WebSocket Bridge (redis_ws_bridge.py): Broadcasts Redis messages to connected web clients
• Docker Deployment: Containerized setup with Redis included

Tech Stack: Python, Redis, WebSockets, Docker

Car Simulator (/car-simulate)

Development and testing tools for simulating vehicle telemetry without physical hardware.

Features:

• CSV Data Playback: Replay recorded CAN data from CSV files
• Persistent WebSocket Server: Continuous data broadcasting for testing
• WebSocket Sender: Configurable data transmission scripts

Includes:

• Sample CAN data files (CSV format)
• Example DBC (CAN database) file for message definitions
• Docker Compose setup for isolated testing environment

Host Demo (/host-demo)

Production deployment configuration for hosting the PECAN dashboard.

Features:

• Dockerized Nginx setup for static file serving
• SSL/HTTPS configuration support

📖 Deployment Guide

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+) and npm
• Python 3.8+
• Redis server
• Docker and Docker Compose (for containerized deployment)

Development Setup

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Western-Formula-Racing/daq-radio.git
   cd daq-radio

   Documentation WIP.

Manual Setup (Individual Components)

PECAN Dashboard

cd pecan
npm install
npm run dev

Base Station

cd base-station
pip install -r requirements.txt
python redis_ws_bridge.py

Car Simulator

cd car-simulate
python websocket_sender.py

📊 CAN Message Categories

PECAN supports configurable message categorization through a simple text-based configuration file. This allows customization of message grouping and color-coding without code changes.

Configuration: pecan/src/assets/categories.txt

Example categories:

• VCU (Vehicle Control Unit)
• BMS (Battery Management System)
• INV (Inverter)
• TEST MSG

📖 Category Configuration Guide

🐳 Docker Deployment

Development Environment

cd car-simulate/persistent-broadcast
docker-compose up -d

Production Deployment

cd host-demo
docker-compose up -d --build

🛠️ Development

Project Structure

daq-radio/
├── pecan/              # React dashboard application
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/ # React components
│   │   ├── pages/      # Page components
│   │   ├── services/   # WebSocket and data services
│   │   └── config/     # Category configuration
│   └── public/         # Static assets
├── base-station/       # Radio receiver and WebSocket bridge
├── car-simulate/       # Testing and simulation tools
├── host-demo/          # Production hosting configuration
└── start_system.sh     # Automated startup script

Technology Stack

• Frontend: React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, React Bootstrap
• Visualization: Plotly.js for interactive charts and graphs
• Build Tools: Vite
• Backend: Python, asyncio, WebSockets
• Message Broker: Redis
• Data Format: CAN bus (DBC files)
• Deployment: Docker, Docker Compose, Nginx

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This project is maintained by the Western Formula Racing team.

Development Workflow

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Test thoroughly with the simulator
5. Submit a pull request

📝 License

This project is licensed under the AGPL-3.0 License. See the LICENSE file for details.

🔗 Related Resources

• PECAN Project Page: Project PECAN
• Live Demo: Demo

❓ Support

For questions or issues, please open an issue on GitHub.

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Built with ❤️ by Western Formula Racing

London, Ontario, Canada 🇨🇦