Sky Observer for Raspberry Pi

Low-Cost 1090ES ADS-B Base Station

Introduction

Sky Observer for Raspberry Pi (Beta) is a low-cost and modular 1090ES ADS-B receiver, decoder and tracker software runs on Raspberry Pi.

Startup

Sky Observer can receive and process ADS-B & Mode-S messages from commercial or homemade ADS-B/Mode-S receiver hardware, extract flight information and make tracking. It can also output flight information in standard ASTERIX category 21 format and JSON format.

Sky Observer is designed to run 7x24, you can safely leave it runing and forget after first setting up.

ADS-B Message

Sky Observer is capable to process the following types of ADS-B messages.

ADS-B Message Type DO-260 DO-260A DO-260B
Airborne Position Message YES YES YES
Surface Position Message
Aircraft Identity and Category Message YES YES YES
Airborne Velocity Message (Ground) YES YES YES
Airborne Velocity Message (Air)
Aircraft Status Message (Emergency) YES YES YES
Aircraft Status Message N/A N/A TBD
Target State and Status Message N/A YES YES
Aircraft Operational Status Message (Airborne) N/A YES YES
Aircraft Operational Status Message (Surface) N/A YES YES

Mode-S Message

Sky Observer is capable to process the following types of Mode-S messages.

Downlink Format Fields Status
DF-0 VS, AC, AP YES
DF-4 FS, DR, UM, AC, AP YES
DF-5 FS, DR, UM, ID, AP YES
DF-11 CA, AA, PI YES
DF-16 VS, AC, MV, AP YES
DF-17 CA, AA, ME, PI YES
DF-18 CF, AA, ME, PI YES
DF-19 AF, AA, ME, PI YES
DF-20 AC, MB, AP YES
DF-21 ID, MB, AP YES

Receiver Hardware

Sky Observer is designed to work with any receiver hardware which can send received Mode-S messages to Sky Observer by LAN, serial or other interfaces.

Currently we are developing and testing it with Radar Cape

Radar Cape

and HULC-M.

HULC-M

We appreciate if any one can support us to interface with other receiver devices!

ASTERIX Output

Sky Observer is able to output received ADS-B tracks in Eurocontrol ASTERIX format.

The supported categories and versions are:

  • Target reports in CAT021 version 0.23
  • Target reports in CAT021 version 0.26
  • Target reports in CAT021 version 2.1

JSON Output

Sky Observer is able to output ADS-B target reprots in JSON format through UDP or HTTP protocol.