In the thesis two matters were raised of which the first is theoretical description of ADS-B based Mode S decoding. Another matter is construction of ADS-B receiver device and software.
ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) is a system, thanks to which aircrafts are able to broadcast their geographical GNSS position and other flight parameters like velocity, altitude, heading, flight number, SQUAWK and individual ICAO code to the other airplanes and to the Air Traffic Control facilities. ADS-B messages may also contain weather reports, flight details and a lot more data. Professional ADS-B receivers are cheaper to buy and operate for Air Traffic Facilities than traditional secondary radars.
An ADS-B receiver was built as a part of this thesis. It works on 1090 MHz frequency. Described device and software is capable of receiving, decoding and displaying plane position and Mode S data on the web-based map. Hardware realization of this project is based on Raspberry Pi 2 B V1.1, a mid-wave antenna working on 1090MHz frequency and capable of reaching 9dBi gain, DVB-T USB decoder equipped with RTL2832U and R820T2 chipset – thanks to those two modules, it’s possible to receive not only ADS-B data but also weather information from weather satellites and listening of any radio digital or analog transmission in the range of 24 MHz ÷ 1766 MHz.The main goal of this thesis was to build a ADS-B receiver device capable of receiving, decoding and displaying decoded aircraft data on map. Receiver was installed in the building of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at Białystok University of Technology in such a way it can be available to the students.
