The Flexible Extensible Radar Simulator

FERS is a comprehensive suite of tools for signal-level radar simulation. It consists of a high-performance C++ simulation engine and a modern, intuitive graphical user interface for building and visualizing complex scenarios.

This repository is structured as a monorepo, containing the core simulator, the UI, and the shared data schema as semi-independent packages.

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Key Features

• Unified Event-Driven Core: A modernized C++23 engine featuring a unified event-driven architecture for efficient simulation of both pulsed and continuous-wave scenarios, with optimized multithreading.
• Visual Scenario Builder: An intuitive 3D interface to construct, configure, and visualize radar scenarios.
• Flexible System Modeling: Simulate a wide range of radar systems, including monostatic, multistatic, pulsed, and continuous wave (CW).
• Advanced Data Export: Output simulation data in HDF5 format for analysis.
• Geographic Visualization: Generate KML files from scenarios for accurate visualization in tools like Google Earth.
• Modern Documentation: A continuously updated and deployed documentation site with a searchable interface, generated directly from the source code.
• Unified Schema: A central XML schema ensures consistency and serves as the single source of truth for scenarios across the simulator and the UI.

Repository Structure

This monorepo contains the following packages:

• packages/libfers: The core C++ radar simulation library. It contains all the core logic, physics, and file processing capabilities, exposed through a C-style API.
• packages/fers-cli: A lightweight command-line interface that acts as a wrapper around libfers, providing backward compatibility with the original FERS executable.
• packages/fers-ui: A modern desktop application built with Tauri and React. It provides a graphical interface for creating, editing, and visualizing FERS scenarios by linking against libfers.
• packages/schema: The XML Schema Definition (XSD) and Document Type Definition (DTD) that define the structure of FERS scenario files. This schema is the contract between the UI and the core simulator.

Development Setup

FERS supports native development on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Supported Development Targets

Platform	Core build	UI build	Notes
Linux x64 / ARM64	Supported	Supported	Requires standard Tauri Linux system packages for the UI.
macOS Intel / Apple Silicon	Supported	Supported	MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=14.0 is recommended locally.
Windows x64	Supported	Supported	Use Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools (or later) and the MSVC Rust toolchain.
Windows ARM64	Supported	Supported	Use native ARM64 MSVC tools and the aarch64-pc-windows-msvc Rust target.

1. Prerequisites

Please install the following external dependencies using their official guides:

• A C++23 compatible compiler (GCC 11+, Clang 14+, or MSVC v143+)
• CMake (3.22+) and Ninja
• vcpkg (C++ package manager)
• Bun (JavaScript runtime and package manager)
• Rust (Required for the Tauri UI)
• Tauri Prerequisites (OS-specific system dependencies for the UI)

Then also review Platform-Specific Notes below.

2. Environment Configuration

Important: FERS relies on vcpkg to manage its C++ dependencies. You must set the VCPKG_ROOT environment variable to point to your vcpkg installation directory before building.

Linux / macOS:

export VCPKG_ROOT=/path/to/vcpkg

Windows (PowerShell):

$env:VCPKG_ROOT = "C:\path\to\vcpkg"

Tip

Installing Visual Studio should provide and link vcpkg if selected during installation, in which case the VCPKG_ROOT envvar is automatically set.

3. Clone and Install JS Dependencies

Clone the repository and install the frontend dependencies. This will also set up pre-commit hooks.

git clone https://github.com/stpaine/FERS.git
cd FERS
bun install

4. Build the Standalone C++ Core

You can configure and compile the C++ libraries and CLI directly using our CMake presets. This will automatically invoke vcpkg to fetch and build the required C++ dependencies (like HDF5 and libxml2).

cmake --preset=release
cmake --build --preset=release

Expected C++ artifacts:

• Linux/macOS CLI: build/release/packages/fers-cli/fers-cli
• Windows CLI: build/release/packages/fers-cli/fers-cli.exe

Tip

You can install the built fers-cli release to your system using:

Linux / macOS:

sudo cmake --install build/release
sudo ldconfig # For Linux only, to update the library cache

This installs to /usr/local by default.

Windows: Open an Administrator Developer PowerShell and run:

cmake --install build/release

This installs to C:\Program Files (x86)\FERS by default.

5. Run the UI

The UI build process is completely self-contained. When you run the UI, Cargo will automatically invoke CMake to build the C++ backend in an isolated directory and link it to the Tauri application.

To start the development server:

bun ui:dev

To build a release UI bundle:

bun ui:build

Warning

On some Intel macOS systems, WebGL may be unavailable at startup due to a system WebKit limitation. FERS detects this and disables the 3D viewport gracefully. See issue #181 for details.

6. Run C++ Unit Tests (optional)

Use the coverage preset to compile and run the Catch2 unit tests. This preset enables FERS_BUILD_TESTS across all platforms.

cmake --preset=coverage
cmake --build --preset=coverage --parallel
ctest --preset=coverage --output-on-failure

Using Old XML Scenarios

The new FERS uses a different XML schema for scenarios than the original version. If you have existing scenarios in the old format, you can convert them to the new format using the included migration script:

python3 scripts/migrate_fers_xml.py old_scenario.fersxml new_scenario.fersxml

Platform-Specific Notes

• Windows: FERS requires native MSVC (Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools, or later). MinGW and WSL are not officially supported. You should use the Developer PowerShell for VS when running build commands so that cl.exe and the Windows SDK are correctly prioritized in your PATH. Ensure you install the MSVC Rust toolchain.
• macOS: It is highly recommended to set MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=14.0 in your environment to ensure modern C++ filesystem support.

Important

Windows: Ensuring the x64 Toolchain

The default Developer PowerShell in Visual Studio may launch with the x86 host toolchain, even on a 64-bit system. This causes CMake to detect a 32-bit compiler, which will fail when linking against the 64-bit vcpkg packages (you will see an error like HighFiveConfig.cmake, version: 3.3.0 (64bit) ... not compatible).

To fix this, you must ensure the x64 toolchain is active. Before running any build commands, execute:

& "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\<VS_VERSION>\<EDITION>\Common7\Tools\Launch-VsDevShell.ps1" -Arch amd64 -HostArch amd64

Replace <VS_VERSION> and <EDITION> with your installation values (e.g., 18 and Community).

You can verify the correct compiler is active by running:

(Get-Command cl.exe).Source  # Should contain Hostx64\x64

Note: If you get a script execution policy error, run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned first.

To make this permanent, edit the Developer PowerShell profile in Tools → Options → Environment → Terminal Profiles and set the arguments to:

-NoExit -Command "& { & 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\<VS_VERSION>\<EDITION>\Common7\Tools\Launch-VsDevShell.ps1' -Arch amd64 -HostArch amd64 }"

Contributing

We welcome contributions to the FERS project! Please read our CONTRIBUTING.md guide to get started.

Note that this repository uses Husky to enforce code quality with pre-commit hooks. When you commit, your staged files will be automatically formatted and linted.

License

• Copyright (C) 2006-2008 Marc Brooker and Michael Inggs.
• Copyright (C) 2008-present FERS contributors (see AUTHORS.md).

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

Third-Party Libraries

FERS incorporates code from several third-party libraries, which are provided under their own licenses (MIT, BSD, Boost). The full text for these licenses can be found in the THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES directory.

Disclaimer & Development Status

Warning

Please be aware that FERS is currently undergoing a significant modernization and re-architecture. The master branch is under heavy active development and should be considered an alpha-stage project.

This means:

• Stability: Expect bugs, crashes, and incomplete features.
• Breaking Changes: The C-API, JSON/XML schemas, and internal architecture are subject to change without notice as the new foundation is stabilized.
• Use Case: This version is intended for development, testing, and community feedback. It is not yet recommended for production or critical simulation work.