Sky Serpent

A modular RF sensing research platform exploring how embedded receiver nodes, software-defined radio and centralised analysis can be combined into repeatable, evidence-driven RF experiments.

Research objective

Sky Serpent investigates RF-based detection and characterisation in complex radio environments. The emphasis is not simply on observing RF energy, but on building the tools needed to collect repeatable measurements, compare observations and evaluate techniques for reducing false positives.

Modular sensing

The platform separates sensing from central analysis. Small network-connected nodes can concentrate on acquiring observations while Linux systems handle storage, comparison, visualisation and more computationally expensive processing.

One established development path uses embedded Ethernet-connected receiver hardware for analogue 5.8 GHz experiments. The wider platform also incorporates software-defined radio for research that requires access to raw RF/IQ information.

Controlled RF laboratory

A detector is difficult to evaluate when the transmitted signal is unknown. Sky Serpent therefore includes controlled, low-power test infrastructure so experiments can be repeated against known conditions and the resulting observations retained for later comparison.

Current focus

Research direction

Current research areas include signal characterisation, multi-sensor correlation, classification, distributed sensing and false-positive reduction. These are research directions rather than claims of completed capability.

Why build it?

Sky Serpent is as much a systems-engineering project as an RF project. It brings together electronics, embedded firmware, networking, SDR, Linux infrastructure, signal analysis and automation while keeping each layer measurable and replaceable.