Airplane Tracking

From NURDspace
Revision as of 00:11, 19 February 2020 by Melan (talk | contribs) (→‎Todo)
Melan
Adsb pi.jpg
Participants Melan
Skills Raspberry pi, Linux, airplanes, radio, rtl-sdr
Status Active as fuck
Niche
Purpose Use for infra
Tool No
Location
Cost
Tool category

Melan

adsb_pi.jpg {{#if:No | [[Tool Owner::{{{ProjectParticipants}}} | }} {{#if:No | [[Tool Cost::{{{Cost}}} | }}

What

A raspberry pi with a RTL-SDR tracking airplanes. Right now it's based on https://github.com/jprochazka/adsb-receiver which provides a nice interface with some statistics, although the project is pretty much dead so eventually we might just put something together ourselves. The pi is accessable as a webinterface on http://planepi.dhcp.nurd.space/

The antenna is located above the bar under the skylight.

How

Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) is a surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked. The information can be received by air traffic control ground stations as a replacement for secondary surveillance radar, as no interrogation signal is needed from the ground. It can also be received by other aircraft to provide situational awareness and allow self-separation. ADS–B is "automatic" in that it requires no pilot or external input. It is "dependent" in that it depends on data from the aircraft's navigation system. This signal is transmitted at 1090Mhz and 978Mhz.


The decoder software (Dump1090) takes in the raw data from the SDR and parses it, we are running the forked version made by Flightradar24, which means the feeder also sends data to Flightradar24. We are also feeding this data to Flightaware and Planefinder.

Hardware

It's running on a Rasberry Pi 2B, the RTLSDR receiver is a Flightaware Pro Stick Plus.

Flightaware Pro Stick Plus
  • Chip: R820T2
  • Amplifier: 19dB with 0.4dB noise figure and OIP3 +39dB
  • TCXO: 0.5 ppm
  • Filter: 1,075 MHz to 1,105 MHz pass band with insertion loss of 2.3 dB; 30 dB attenuation on other frequencies
  • Power Draw: 300 mA
  • Weight: 17 g / 0.6 oz
  • Dimensions: 95 mm x 32 mm x 13 mm
  • Antenna Port: SMA female (requires SMA antenna cable and optionally N-male adapter for large antenna)
  • Range: Over 300 nm/550 km depending on installation quality
  • Performance: 10-20% more Mode S messages in installations where filtering is beneficial


Ports

List of all then ports, whom they belong to, and their function.

Port Service Description
80 lighthttpd Basic Webserver
8080 Dump1090 Dump1090 map, doesn't seem to work directly
3002 Dump1090 Dump1080 raw data
3003 Dump1090 SBS output
3004 Dump1090 Dunno
3005 Dump1090 Beast?
30053 PlaneFinder Planefinder web interface

Todo

  • Move the RTL-SDR closer to the antenna to minimize signal lost this has been done, with great results!
  • Make a different antenna/remake the current antenna
  • Write down to which sites we feed to