Tagged: ads-b

Combining Multiple RTL-SDRs for Improved ADS-B Reception

Over on Gough’s Tech Zone blog, Lui has posted a writeup about his experiences with combining multiple remote RTL-SDR ADS-B receivers to privately obtain ADS-B aircraft data from multiple antenna’s at multiple locations. His setup is shown in a diagram below. He has one remote antenna connected to a Raspberry Pi, one to a remote PC and one to his main PC.

Combining Multiple ADSB Receivers

In order to do this he used the Linux based dump1090 ADSB-B decoder and hub software on his main PC. Lui was even able to compile and run the ADS-B hub portion of dump1090 on his Windows PC using Cygwin, but was unable to get the decoder part to work. It doesn’t matter though because the dump1090 hub can receive data from any ADSB decoder, such as ADSB#. His results look very promising as can be seen by the timelapse of plane traces in the image below.

nearairport

Lui also has some other interesting ADS-B + RTL-SDR posts that you should check out where he tests ADS-B reception with a Mini R820T dongle.

RTL1090 Beta 2 Updated to Build 102

Popular ADS-B decoding software for the RTL-SDR RTL1090 has updated it’s beta version to build 102. This new build has the following improvements

– Decoder improved by brute force 1-bit error correction and brute force DF11 and DF17 override for unknown DFs. This may be tough stuff for slow computers. If your computer slows down considerably return to a previous version please.

– Tabs introduced – List/Table selection moved to Tabs.

– Stats tab added: this brings back the previous status bar info about USB packets per second.

– II/SI tab added. This tab adds the ability to quickly scan the Mode-S interrogator codes around. A “radar1090.txt” file can be added to the rtl1090 folder that holds II/SI code decodings. A sample file is attached. The II/SI collection can be reset by a right mouse click action. The recently seen codes and the last aircraft responding with that code are display in red onwhite.

– Context menu (right mouse click) for text window, “listhold” established by menu selection, revoked by mouse click.

You can download the latest beta from http://rtl1090.com

Update: RTL-SDR Running ADS-B on a Quadrocopter now with Augmented Reality Display

Previously we showed a post on how John Wiseman was able to get ADS-B decoding with dump1090 running on his AR.Drone with an RTL-SDR stick so that he could track the locations of other aircraft. He has now gone further and implemented an Augmented Reality style ADS-B aircraft radar display on his AR.Drone. Check out the video he posted showing it in action below.

AR.Drone with air traffic (ADS-B) overlaid on camera feed

AR Drone with Augmented Reality ADS-B using RTL-SDR

RTL1090 Series 2 Beta Released

A new beta version of the RTL1090 ADS-B decoding software for the rtl-sdr has been released. Currently, it seems only the GUI has been improved, but the author plans on soon adding the following improvements

  • Start with Windows and Resume from hibernate/standby
  • DO260 A/B and signal strength processing for HTTP server
  • Improve Mode-S and Mode A/C decoder
  • Complete autoupdate
  • Log file selection from config dialog
  • MLAT counter accuracy
  • Renovate SISEX design

See the Yahoo Groups release post here for the full build change notes, and download the beta from their website here.

New RTL1090 Series 2 Beta

News Source – Radio Antics

Homemade ADS-B Collinear Antenna

Earlier in the week a video comparing a Discone to a Coax Collinear antenna for ADS-B reception was posted. The author of that video has now posted on his blog a tutorial on how he made the coax collinear antenna. Check out the video tutorial below.

Making an inexpensive 1090MHz ADS-B collinear antenna

Virtual Radar Server running on a Raspberry Pi with Mono

YouTube user 907h9879070g9790 has posted a video showing Virtual Radar Server running on a Raspberry Pi with the Raspian hardfloat image OS installed. He used Mono to allow the .NET based Virtual Radar Server to run on the Raspberry Pi. Instructions for using Virtual Radar Server with Mono can be found here.

Combined with an rtl-sdr and dump1090, ADS-B packets can be sent to Virtual Radar Server, and then the aircraft radar map can be viewed on a PC or internet enabled device via a network connection. This can allow a small self contained remote ADS-B monitoring system to be set up.

EDIT: Unfortunately the video owner has taken down the video.