ADS-B decoding on an AR.Drone

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"Cheap ADS-B on Amateur Drones":

Get a head start on the NASA Centennial Challenge's ADS-B requirements by plugging a $20 USB dongle into your drone and tracking nearby aircraft:

  1. Start with an AR.Drone (or other ARM-based amateur drone).
  2. Buy a $30 USB dongle.  See the rtl-sdr wiki for recommendations.
  3. Compile and install the dump1090 Mode S/ADS-B decoder software with my easy-to-use cross-compiler setup: ardrone-dump1090-cross-compiler
  4. Plug in the receiver.

And now you're decoding packets:

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ADS-B sense-and-avoid is seen as critical to integrating unmanned aircraft into the National Air Space, and this is the beginning of a cheap "sense" solution.  Next up: "avoid".

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Comments

  • Veikko: Yes, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CThfM9tPKGM for an example of someone decoding AIS.

  • Nice! congrats.

  • Moderator

    Ahem lets not forget 30 quads flying 1000' below one of the busiest approach paths in the world at night in London just last week. DSA is a bit of an FAA red herring. Lots of useful work could be happening in the USA within VLOS. 

  • No idea.  The RTL-SDR can be tuned to 978 MHz, but I don't know of any available UAT decoding software.

  • Lloyd: Yes.  Just change the sign on your error function...  More seriously, maybe it's time to add security to ADS-B, though it's not obvious to me how to do that and still have it be useful.

    Richard: Thanks for the link, I had missed that.

    Kevin: I was toying with the idea, but I'm completely unfamiliar with the PX4 code, so I say, go for it!

  • there was a discussion of this idea a little while back..

    http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/integration-of-air-traffic-data

  • Or even to sense and put a dummy transmitter on a collision course, you don't even need a real collision.

  • Surely this sense and avoid could easily be subverted to sense and collide?

  • Yep, very nice.

  • Can't wait for USB host on Arducopter.

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