E-Obs Schedule Optimizer

Overview

The E-Obs Schedule Optimizer is an R Shiny application designed to assist researchers in configuring the GPS and IMU schedules of E-Obs telemetry devices. It also provides tools to estimate battery life, memory consumption, and set delayed start times based on user-input settings. Additionally, the app includes timezone conversion from UTC to facilitate device deployment planning across different regions.

Please see the accompanying PDF helper sheet for a complete guide to all E-Obs input settings.

Features

• Battery Life Estimator: Predict battery life based on user-defined GPS/IMU/Pinger schedule configurations.
• Memory Usage Estimator: Estimate memory consumption based on user-defined GPS/IMU/Pinger schedule configurations.
• Delayed Start Calendar: Set a future delayed start time for the device.
• Timezone Converter: Provides a UTC to 'local time zone' converter.

Installation

To run this application, you need to have R installed on your computer. The app also requires several R packages, which will be installed automatically if they are not present.

Required Libraries

The following R packages are used in the app:

• shiny: Provides the web application framework.
• lubridate: Simplifies working with dates and times.
• ggplot2: Creates plots to visualize battery and memory consumption.
• shinyvalidate: Adds validation checks for user inputs.
• dplyr: Provides tools for data manipulation.
• shinyWidgets: Adds custom user interface components.
• htmltools: Enhances UI rendering in Shiny.

Automatic Package Installation

The app will automatically install any missing packages upon startup. If a required package is not installed, the script will install it before proceeding. You can review the package installation section in the code:

# Required packages
if (!require('shiny')) { install.packages('shiny', dependencies = TRUE, type="source") }
suppressMessages(require("shiny"))
if (!require('lubridate')) { install.packages('lubridate', dependencies = TRUE, type="source") }
suppressMessages(require("lubridate"))
# (and so on for other packages...)

How to Run the App

1. Clone or Download the Repository:

   • Clone the repository to your local machine using Git.

2. Open RStudio:

   • Navigate to the directory containing E-Obs-Schedule-Optimizer.R.
   • Open E-Obs-Schedule-Optimizer.R in RStudio.

3. Run the App:

   • In RStudio, click the "Run App" button or run the following command:

     shiny::runApp("E-Obs-Schedule-Optimizer.R")

   • This will launch the app in your web browser.

4. Run Directly from GitHub:

   • You can run the app directly from GitHub by using the following command in R:

     shiny::runGitHub("E-Obs-Schedule-Optimizer", "your-github-username")

Using the App

1. Configure GPS/IMU Settings

• Input desired GPS and IMU schedules to estimate how they will impact device battery and memory.

2. Delayed Start Feature

• Select a future start date from the calendar to delay the beginning of data collection. This will provide an 'Eobs Day Number' (see the accompanying PDF helper sheet).

3. Timezone Converter

• Convert UTC times to your desired local time zone to ensure consistency in deployment planning.

Notes

• Make sure your system has a working internet connection to install the required packages during the first run.
• The app provides estimates for battery and memory consumption. Actual values may vary depending on device conditions.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Contact

For questions or suggestions, feel free to contact me at [rgunner@ab.mpg.de].