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Satellite Tracker
A tool for tracking the International Space Station and other satellites build with Node Red and IBM Watson.
Cognitive
The skies above us are filled with satellites, many of which enrich our science and understanding of the Earth with data about the weather, climate, natural phenomena, and human activity. We can find and monitor some of these satellites easily using tools from IBM Watson, including Node-RED and Watson Assistant. This Code Pattern will demonstrate how to do that, showing how to easily build the tools and Web UI, and giving a foundation for any developer to build and improve on.
By Scott D'Angelo, Joe Pavitt
- N/A
- TBD
In this Code Pattern, we will build a satellite tracker using Node-RED and IBM Watson. A flow will be created for connecting a Watson Assistant Chatbot with a node-red-contrib-satellites node, as well as a web UI and worldmap node.
When the reader has completed this Code Pattern, they will understand how to:
- Build a complex flow and web UI using simple Node-RED tools.
- Implement a chatbot with Watson Assistant and embed it on a web page with Node-RED.
- Get satellite information for the International Space Station (ISS) and use it in a web app.
- User interacts with Web UI to query the chat bot "Where is the ISS?".
- Web UI communicates with Node-RED running on IBM Cloud.
- Node-RED app running on the cloud processes info and performs HTTP requests.
- Satellites orbiting the earth send position info which is streamed to Node-RED module.
- Watson Assistant: Create a chatbot with a program that conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods.
- Node-REDNode-RED is a programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways.
- Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence can be applied to disparate solution spaces to deliver disruptive technologies.
- Node.js: An open-source JavaScript run-time environment for executing server-side JavaScript code.
Build a Satellite Tracker with Node-RED and Watson Assistant
Scott D'Angelo
There are many tools available for building software, including programming languages, frameworks, and editors. But if you haven't tried Node-RED, you may be surprised at how easy it can be to build a complex flow of data that includes hardware monitoring, UI elements, and all the functionality and widgets you might need. We demonstrate one use case by monitoring some of the satellites that orbit the earth. A simple chat bot using IBM Watson Assistant demonstrates how to add these features to any conversation, giving the flexibility to use these tools during the flow of a conversation.
One of the specialties of Node-RED is in wiring together hardware devices for the Internet of Things. But what if, instead of devices at the edge of the network, we want information about devices at the edge of the Thermosphere? Node-RED offers not only built-in modules, but many contrib nodes created by the community, one of which allows easy monitoring of over 50 satellites. I was actually surprised to learn of the tooling available for HTTP requests, UI features, and custom functions. And, of course, there are nodes available for most of the AI tools offered by IBM Watson.
Try out this Code Pattern to build a satellite tracker using Node-RED and IBM Watson Assistant. In minutes you can create a prototype for tracking satellites, and gain some insight into how you can customize the Watson tools and Node-RED for your own use cases.