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Ask the rig

Ask the rig lets you ask questions in plain English about what the rig has seen and heard. For example: “What aircraft are overhead right now?”

It is read-only. It can describe what the rig knows, but it cannot change anything. It cannot move a camera, change a setting, or clear an alert.

Open it

Select ASK in the sidebar. The panel opens on the right, under the heading Ask the rig.

The ASK button appears only when the rig has an AI model set up to answer questions. If you do not see it, ask your administrator to set one up under Admin → Reasoners.

Operators and administrators can ask questions. Other users can open the panel but see Operators and admins can ask.

Ask a question

  1. Type your question in the box at the bottom. It says Ask about aircraft, drones, ATC, alerts… until you type.
  2. Select Ask, or press Enter.
  3. Wait for the answer. The panel shows Thinking… while it works.

Before your first question, you can select one of the example questions instead of typing.

You can ask follow-up questions. The rig keeps the recent conversation in mind. To start over, select clear.

Example questions

  • What aircraft are overhead right now?
  • Anything unusual in the last hour?
  • Summarize the ATC traffic.
  • Have any drones been seen in the last hour?
  • Were any alerts sent recently?
  • Is the rig healthy?

Check every answer

AI answers can be wrong. To help you check, every answer has a Rig data: line underneath it. The rig counts these numbers itself. The AI does not write them:

  • Last hour: drones seen by the camera, drones first heard on Remote ID, and alerts sent
  • Now: aircraft on ADS-B, and when the rig has them, targets tracked (and how many nothing explains), drones broadcasting Remote ID, and passive radar tracks (and how many match no ADS-B aircraft)
  • Not watching: any sensor that can’t see right now, such as a camera with no picture, an ADS-B receiver that has heard nothing for several minutes or whose dongle the passive radar is using, the telescope busy with astro, or a forwarder that went offline

While ADS-B is not watching, the line says the aircraft count is unknown, and radar tracks are counted as not checked rather than as unmatched.

If the answer and the Rig data: line disagree, trust the Rig data: line. A sensor listed under Not watching means the rig can’t tell, never that the sky is clear.

Where the answer comes from

A short note at the top of the panel tells you which AI answers your questions:

  • Answered on this rig. The AI runs on the rig. The panel says Nothing leaves this rig. The first question after a pause can take a couple of minutes while the model loads.
  • Answered by an online AI service. The panel says that a summary of the rig’s current state is sent to this provider with each question. Your administrator chooses the service.

If the rig cannot answer, the panel shows the reason in amber, for example that no model has been chosen yet. Pass the message to your administrator.

What it knows

Each time you ask, the rig gives the AI a snapshot, most important first:

  • What the rig can watch right now: the camera, ADS-B, Remote ID, the telescope, the passive radar and the forwarders, and anything that is down.
  • Targets the camera is tracking now: class, alert level, and what explains each one (an ADS-B aircraft, a satellite, the Moon or a planet, a known identity), or that nothing does. The object box you drew is listed separately.
  • Aircraft on ADS-B, nearest first, with range and bearing from the rig and any emergency squawk.
  • Drones broadcasting Remote ID now, with distance, height and speed.
  • Passive radar: confirmed tracks now, with range and speed (and bearing with an antenna array), which match ADS-B aircraft and which don’t, and the tracks of the last hour. Interference lines on the radar receiver are reported as a fault, never as tracks.
  • Drone-band radio emitters the forwarders hear now.
  • The sky: satellites above the horizon, the Moon and planets, active meteor showers, and what the sky check matched in the last hour.
  • Camera detections in the last hour, with how each was explained, and the detections nothing explained.
  • Radio signals in the last hour (ATC, datalink, Remote ID), UAP chatter and operator reports from the last day, the forwarders and phones and where they are, and recent alerts and watch-rule hits.

The radar and the radio-emitter detector measure; they never name an object. The AI is told to say so, and to link sources only where the snapshot supports it, for example a camera target, a radar track and an ADS-B aircraft in the same place at the same time.

When the AI runs on the rig, its snapshot is shorter: the rig keeps the most important parts and says which were left out, so the model’s instructions always fit.

Limits

  • Mostly about the last hour (UAP chatter and reports: the last day; passive radar tracks are kept 30 days by default). For older history, use Recording and reporting or the event log.
  • Read-only. It cannot take any action.
  • What was said on the radio. When the AI runs on the rig, it does not see the words of ATC transcripts or datalink messages, only who transmitted, when, and on what frequency. This protects against radio messages written to mislead the AI. Read the transcripts yourself in the RF view.
  • Questions up to 1,000 characters.
  • Only about the rig’s data. Questions that aren’t about what the rig has seen and heard (aircraft, drones, targets, alerts, radio traffic, radar, the sky check) get one fixed reply: “I can only answer questions about what this rig has seen and heard.”
  • It can be wrong. Answers are AI-generated, and the panel says so. Use the Rig data: line, the target card, and the map to confirm anything that matters.

How it keeps answers consistent

From version 0.2.554, Ask the Rig does several things to make its answers repeatable and tied to the rig’s data:

  • Counting questions are answered from the rig’s own counts, with no AI involved: “How many aircraft are up?”, “How many drones?”, “How many alerts?” give the same answer every time for the same data.
  • The AI answers with no randomness (its “temperature” is set to zero), so the same question about the same data gets the same answer.
  • Repeated questions within two minutes, with the same counts, get the same answer.
  • Answers are checked against the rig’s data. If an answer names a callsign, registration, ICAO code or number that the rig has no record of, it isn’t shown. You see “I can’t confirm that from the rig’s data” and what it mentioned instead.