NovaStar / Overview

This documentation is the top-level NovaStar overview, with background and links to other documents. Although NovaStar was originally designed for flood warning, the system is generally applicable to environmental data collection and monitoring and is often used for other purposes such as water supply measurement and environmental monitoring. However, the documentation focuses on flood warning. See also:

Documentation Target Roles

The NovaStar documentation is organized to meet the needs of people serving in specific roles. A single person at an organization may serve in multiple roles and may need to refer to multiple documentation sections. The NovaStar documentation also includes references to products outside of the core NovaStar data management product, because additional software tools have been added to meet the needs of users. The following roles are assumed.

  • IT System Administrator - has administrator privileges to install software and hardware
  • Data Network System Administrator - responsible for configuring and maintaining stations, communications network, and base station software
  • Flood Warning System (FWS) Administrator - responsible for configuring and troubleshooting stations, alarms, data imports and exports, etc. and providing organizational support for the Flood Warning System
  • Emergency Managers - consume Flood Warning System information to make decisions about emergency operations and planning
  • Technical Data Users - use data from the NovaStar system to perform analysis
  • Public - use data to make personal decisions or decisions for their organizations

Documentation Map

The NovaStar documentation is web-based with links between sections to facilitate access to information. The following is a roadmap of the documentation consistent with the roles listed in the previous section. Links will be enabled as documentation is prepared.

  • NovaStar Overview (this documentation)
  • NovaStar for System Administrators - common information technology tasks
    • Overview
    • System Setup
    • System Updates
    • Replace Hard Drive
    • Troubleshooting
  • NovaStar for Data Network Administrators - information about maintaining data collection networks
    • Overview
    • ALERT Background
    • ALERT Analytics
    • Field Tech
    • Sensor Calibration
    • Station Maintenance Web Forms
    • Troubleshooting
  • NovaStar for Flood Warning System Administrators- information about configuring and using the NovaStar base station
    • Overview
    • Station Configuration
    • Point (Sensor) Configuration
    • Data Imports
    • Data Exports
    • Ratings for Stage/Discharge Conversion
    • Calculated Data
    • Alarm Configuration
    • Administrator User Interface (Admin UI) Map Configuration
    • Backup Configuration
    • System Monitoring
    • Troubleshooting
  • NovaStar for Emergency Managers - information about using NovaStar features for emergency management
    • Overview
    • NovaStar Features
    • Operator User Interface (Operator UI)
    • Flood Impact Tool
  • NovaStar for Technical Data Users - information about using NovaStar features for data analysis
    • Overview
    • Internal Website
    • TSTool Software
    • Web Services
  • NovaStar for Public Data Access - information about using NovaStar for public data access
    • Overview
    • Public Website
    • Web Services

NovaStar History

NovaStar was developed by HydroLynx Systems, Inc. over many years as a base station for ALERT flood warning systems and was been enhanced over time to provide many advanced features, and support for ALERT2 protocol. TriLynx Systems, LLC (TriLynx), located in Fort Collins, Colorado, purchased the NovaStar software in 2015 and provides software support and upgrades, as well as introducing new products.

NovaStar 5 was a major upgrade from NovaStar 4 and resulted in moving the system to Linux operating system. Although NovaStar 5 is referenced in some places, the more generic "NovaStar" software name now generally refers to NovaStar 5.

NovaStar System Description

NovaStar is a real-time data collection and management software system designed to:

  • receive real-time hydrometeorological data from ALERT/ALERT2 radio transmissions
  • solicit data from two-way radio systems
  • accept data from "call in" sources such as cellular mobile modems
  • read data from web sources such as government web services, FTP sites, etc.

Transmission of data may be initiated by the remote station, either on a set schedule or when a defined event occurs, for example at each tip of a rain gage. NovaStar can also poll an external source for data on a configured schedule, such as a remote station equipped with a HydroLynx model 50386 data collection unit or the USGS National Water Information Server (NWIS) Web.

NovaStar can ingest USGS stream gage data and process data formats including text files in the National Weather Service Standard Hydrologic Exchange Format (SHEF files), commercial satellite, and GOES satellite data.

NovaStar is designed to act as a client-server application. The NovaStar server runs on a Linux operating system and receives data broadcast on specified radio frequencies through serial or USB ports on the dedicated server computer. A web interface provides server access from any computer device with internet capabilities.

One or more FWS Administrators and any number of users can be defined. Users are not given access to features that would allow them to alter the data structures defined by the FWS administrator. The NovaStar system provides features to access data in suitable ways to meet the needs of different users, as indicated in the above documentation outline.

To make data useful for analysis and decision-making, the FWS Administrator configures NovaStar to perform error checking on the incoming data, and to convert sensor output into appropriate engineering units that are correctly associated with their geographic location and the time of the measurement. The FWS administrator can also configure NovaStar to provide automatic warning to any number of users via display alarms, audible alarms, emails, text messages, tweets, and phone/voice auto-dialed alarms if specific conditions are met. All NovaStar users including the FWS administrator are able to respond to alarms, customize map displays, view, analyze and plot data and generate data reports.

NovaStar stores data in a PostgreSQL database, which can be accessed for analysis and display of raw and regular interval time series point data, using NovaStar’s internal data reporting tools, or with compatible applications that access data via ODBC queries, web services, or data exports. The database contents can be edited and NovaStar includes post-event and historical data processing functions including statistical and time interval data analyses, rating tables with effective time, and daily and monthly rainfall and streamflow reporting. Data observations can be summarized on varying time steps (N-minute, N-hour, N-day, monthly, yearly).

NovaStar Basic Concepts

The use and support of NovaStar requires an understanding of basic concepts and terminology discussed below and used throughout the NovaStar documentation and software. Terminology is defined in the logical order that explains data relationships.

Station - stations in NovaStar represent locations where data are collected, and are identified by a unique numeric identifier in the range 0 to 99,999,999. Additional data fields include name and location, and alternate name for display.

  • physical station
    • in a standard ALERT network, each station is uniquely identified by its name, coordinate location (latitude/longitude), and station ID. Acceptable ALERT station ID numbers can range from 0 to 8191. TODO smalers 2016-11-26 need information about how ALERT station ID gets assigned
  • synthetic station
    • for example, create a station to represent a basin that has associated average of precipitation stations
    • equipment where data are collected, such as base station computer performance

Station Type - Each station is equipped with a datalogger/data collection unit (DCU)/transmitter installed at the station (HydroLynx 5096, Sutron 8210, Handar 555, or HydroLynx 50386). In NovaStar, station types describe attributes of this equipment. Synthetic stations have a type of "Synthetic". TODO smalers 2016-11-26 need this list to be updated to reflect the broader NovaStar integration and options for synthetic stations (base station, basin, etc.).

Point - Each station may have zero or more associated data collection points. The generic term "point" is used rather than "sensor" because sensors are only one way that data may be associated with a station. The data packets provided by most stations contain one measurement per remote sensor identifier. Some exceptions are digital status (multiple digital inputs per data value transmission) and ALERT wind (wind run and wind direction are combined in one value transmission). When these compound sensor data reports are received, the data value is parsed to store individual sensor data values in the points assigned to the remote sensor identifier. A point represents a single measurement data stream in the database; either a data value received from a remote sensor or a computed or derived value.

  • sensor - a station may have a number of different sensors installed. Examples of installed sensors at a station include battery voltage, rain gage, pressure transducer to monitor water level, wind speed/direction sensor, air temperature sensor, and relative humidity sensor.
  • synthetic point - point data may be associated with a synthetic data point, such as calculated value
  • data import point - point data may also be obtained from other external sources, for example when data is obtained via satellite or web.

Point Type - A point type characterizes the data values returned from a remote sensor and each point in NovaStar must have a point type. Sensors producing data values of a similar nature are grouped into point types to facilitate configuration of the system, definition of alarm levels, and display of data. Point types specify the data unit associated with data from a point and can be used to configure data calibration and data checking for those point types for which point-level data calibration and checking is appropriate. The creation of point types is left to the FWS administrator during system setup. An example of a point type is a 1 mm tipping bucket rain gage, which accumulates over time.

Data Calibration - A data calibration is a collection of values that are used to convert raw sensor data into scaled point data in the desired engineering units before storing in the NovaStar database. Data calibration values are essentially an "adder" and "multiplier", such as converting pressure transducer sensor voltage to water depth. Additional conversions may be necessary and are discussed in the documentation for defining data points. TODO smalers 2016-11-26 need to reference discussion about how factors can be configured on sensor or at base station, and clarify that these are not sensor calibrations that are defined to adjust raw measurement values.

Data Reports - a "data report" is a value that is reported by a sensor, in scaled (engineering) units. Lack of data reports can be a cause for concern because it may indicate a hardware malfunction.

Alarm - an alarm is condition that is triggered by examining point data reported values (engineering values) against trigger threshold criteria. For example, rain accumulations over a time interval can be compared against accumulations for large storms and water level or flow can be compared against values corresponding to flooding conditions.

Alarm Group - Points producing data values that can be evaluated for alarm conditions using the same criteria are grouped into an alarm group. An alarm group lets you assign the same alarm threshold criteria and trigger values to multiple points, thereby simplifying system configuration. For example, an alarm group may be defined containing all batteries. The group is then assigned a low limit voltage alarm level, typically 11.0 volts. Incoming data for any battery in the group is checked against the alarm level defined for the group. The alarm group concept facilitates the configuration and display of alarm conditions for multiple sensors with similar alarm conditions.

Time Series - A time series is a sequence of time/value data pairs for a data point and may be either:

  • irregular interval - timestamps do not fall on a regular interval (the interval is uneven). This is consistent with field observations such as ALERT and ALERT2 where measurements are triggered by a storm event. NovaStar primarily manages irregular time series values and provides ways to calculate regular interval time series from irregular interval data. Display of irregular interval time series illustrate the actual field measurements.
  • regular interval - timestamps fall on regular interval, such as every 5 minutes. Regular interval time series are convenient for analysis and comparison but, when computed from irregular interval time series, will be impacted by the calculations to convert from irregular to regular interval.

Display Interval - The display interval is used to create time series information from irregular interval data for display purposes. ALERT data reports are received on uneven time intervals and are stored within the database as such. The display interval can range from 5 minutes to 1 year. The display interval in NovaStar corresponds to the interval end for accumulated and mean data. For example, the mean 15-minute streamflow at time 00:15 is the average of streamflow from instantaneous values in the 15 minutes ending at 00:15. NovaStar includes computational features to calculate regular interval data from irregular data.