udpPacketManager: An International LOFAR Station Data (Pre-)Processor

TL;DR

udpPacketManager is an open-source C/C++ library designed to efficiently convert raw LOFAR station data into various formats for easier processing and analysis, supporting both online and offline workflows.

Contribution

It introduces a fast, versatile data conversion library tailored for LOFAR stations, addressing a gap in existing data processing tools.

Findings

Provides faster-than-realtime data conversion

Supports multiple data formats for LOFAR data

Enables both online and offline data processing

Abstract

International LOFAR stations are powerful radio telescopes, however they are delivered without the tooling necessary to convert their raw data stream into standard data formats that can be used by common processing pipelines, or science-ready data products. udpPacketManager is a C and C++ library that was developed with the intent of providing a faster-than-realtime software package for converting raw data into arbitrary data formats based on the needs of observers working with the Irish LOFAR station (I-LOFAR), and stations across Europe. It currently offers an open-source solution for both offline and online (pre-)processing of telescope data into a wide variety of formats.