# TinyGS vs. SatNOGS: A Comparative Analysis of Open-Source Satellite Ground Station Networks
## 4 TinyGS  
### TinyGS Introduction  
TinyGS is a recent project, which started, more precisely, in 2019 under the name ESP32 Fossa GroundStation. This project takes advantage of the existence of a global network of ground stations distributed all over the world and aims to communicate mainly with LoRa satellites in order to receive data from them [9]. The advantage of using LoRa is that it allows the user to carry out long-range transmissions with low power consumption,which is why it has been increasingly used, even on satellites where energy consumption is decisive.  
TinyGS, as with SatNOGS, can be seen as a project divided into a number of parts, specifically the following three parts:  
* TinyGS ground station;
* TinyGS network;
* TinyGS \"client\".  
The TinyGS ground station refers to all of the hardware used in the communication from the antenna, LNA, and filter (if needed) to the LoRa module [9].  
The TinyGS network is responsible for scheduling observations automatically, sending observations jobs, receiving, saving, and making the data available to everyone [9].  
Although the term \"TinyGS client\" is not used in the TinyGS project, it is used here to create symmetry between TinyGS and SatNOGS and represents the software that runs on the LoRa module. It is responsible for receiving observation jobs and changing the GS configuration according to the satellite with which the network wants to communicate [9].  
Figure 4 shows the high-level relationships between users, the TinyGS network, GS, and satellites. Contrary to SatNOGS, in TinyGS, the information about satellites, GS, and observations is contained in the same database. If one wants to collect or access any information, one can do so through the web application [23], Telegram, or the programmatic API (if one owns a GS), depending on the information one wants.  
The operation of TinyGS it is slightly different from that of SatNOGS. While in SatNOGS the users are the ones carrying out the observations, in TinyGS, it is the TinyGS network that is responsible for this task. Therefore, it is the TinyGS network itself that decides, by proximity, which satellite (within supported satellites) the ground station will communicate with and also indicates the configuration that the GS must have to be able to communicate with that satellite. However, if one wants to communicate with a particular satellite, it is possible to do so, but only with its GS. To do that, one has to configure the GS according to that satellite, and it is advisable to disable automatic tuning [9]. After the GS is configured to communicate with a certain satellite, when that satellite passes over the GS, communication takes place, and the LoRa board receives the data. Then, the LoRa board  
Figure 4: High-level relationships between TinyGS parts. The bidirectional arrows represent the sending or receiving of data. Satellites represent supported satellites found in the TinyGS web application [23]. The ground station symbol next to the LoRa module symbol represents all the hardware, from the antenna and LNA to the filter.  
forwards the data to the network where it is stored on a database and available to any user through the web application and Telegram. Furthermore, if the user wants to get the data (or change the GS parameters), it is possible to do so using the programmatic API [9].