Build a Raspberry Pi base station to track airplane traffic?

Engineer Brian Chris Toner is working on a project that uses a Raspberry Pi to build a base station and track an overhead plane.

The plane uses satellites to determine its position, but this time it is transmitted as an unencrypted signal called ADS-B. The ground radar can receive this signal and determine where each plane is flying and can guide the plane.

He used FlightAware information to track flights around the world. FlightAware is the world’s largest flight tracking data platform, which collects flight information and statistics, visualizes them as flight tracking maps, and delivers them in real time. FlightAware is releasing PiAware, open software that collects data from air traffic control while crowdsourcing information and receiving ADS-B broadcasting the plane’s latitude and altitude. Chris Toner is a project that uses Fireware and Raspberry Pi to track airplanes around the world.

Create a FlightAware base station on a Raspberry Pi, collect ADS-B data, and submit it to FlightAware for visualization. I used Fireware on the Raspberry Pi and used a USB TV tuner to record the ADS-B signal.

The main components are a Raspberry Pi, a small antenna, and a DVB-T USB-type TV tuner, which costs about $45. Replacing the antenna and TV tuner with a higher price increases the cost by about 20-40 dollars, but has the advantage of expanding the range of received data.

The process through this is that Fireware downloads the image file, copies the file to the SD card, installs the Raspberry Pi headless over Wi-Fi, starts the Raspberry Pi, connects to the IP, connects to the FlightAware account, and starts recording flight traffic. . Related information can be found here.