Commercial Aircraft Satellite Tracking

[newsnick175]

An agreement has been reported in the media that says that real time satellite tracking of commercial aircraft can be established due to an agreement on band space for that use. What is the technical background on this? One on-line news source says 1087.7 - 1092.3 Mhz is the spectrum agreed to.

 

[detroit780]

ADS-B

That's the ADS-B band which you can track planes via a receiver at home. Here is a littler background on why they accepted it.




Radio spectrum allocated for global flight tracking

An agreement has been reported in the media that says that real time satellite tracking of commercial aircraft can be established due to an agreement on band space for that use. What is the technical background on this? One on-line news source says 1087.7 - 1092.3 Mhz is the spectrum agreed to.

 

[newsnick175]

I gather that ADS has been around for awhile. This up grade seams a "no brainer".

 

[K5MPH]

This is a good thing that the airline are doing adding this to all their air planes it makes it a lot more safe........

 

[Lawman51]

well you would think it would be safer, look around youtube you will find some hackers that found out this system is totally open, no authentication. Unbelievable to me as a network designer something this important could be unsecure...boggles the mind sometimes.

 

[jwt873]

I'm a bit late to this thread, but, you can view 'live' flight data derived from ADS-B broadcasts on a couple of websites that offer the service.

There's Flightradar 24 https://www.flightradar24.com

and Flightaware https://flightaware.com/live/

These web sites sometimes supply their dedicated users with ADS-B receivers and antennas that will allow the reception of the 1090 Mhz ADS-B broadcasts at home. They do this on the provision that you feed the data to their site 24/7 over the internet so they can use it to track planes.

Note that it's not easy to get a receiver from them because they have lots of them out already. If you live in a sparsely populated area, you might be able to get one.

If not, you can build your own ADS-B receiver setup using an RTL SDR dongle... Instructions are here: RTL-SDR Tutorial: Cheap ADS-B Aircraft RADAR - rtl-sdr.com

 

[majoco]

This is a good thing that the airline are doing adding this to all their air planes it makes it a lot more safe........

Really? How does it do that?

....and the airlines don't have to do anything - the equipment is already on the aircraft. How the satellite is going to gather all the information and then send it to a ground station to be processed is the hard part.

 

[jwt873]

Right now, the aircraft get their positions and ground speed from the Global Navigation Satellite System (A fancy name for GPS). That's the only time satellites come into play.

This data is then broadcast from aircraft to aircraft and aircraft to ground on 1090 Mhz. This allows a pilot to know exactly who is nearby and the precise speed, heading, and altitude of all neighboring aircraft. It also allows aircraft towers to better track incoming/outgoing traffic.

ADS-B is far more accurate than conventional aircraft radar and is expected to replace most of it one day.

There's a pretty good article here ---> ADS-B Technologies Website

In 2017/18 it's expected that aircraft will also be transmitting to the Iridium satellite constellation as well. (They are installing ADS-B 1090 Mhz receivers in the newly launched second-generation satellites). When the second-generation constellation is complete, it will allow 100% coverage of the earth's surface. (Had this been available a year ago, we would have known where the Malaysian 777 went down).

See --> It’s Just ADS-B | Aireon

 

[majoco]

ADS-B is far more accurate than conventional aircraft radar and is expected to replace most of it one day.

Are you talking about the radar fitted to aircraft or the radar on the ground attempting to track the aircraft?

The radar in the aircraft is used for weather spotting, not for seeing other aircraft.
The radar on the ground is no longer 'primary' radar, it is 'secondary' that requires the aircraft to send out a data burst on 1090MHz when swept by the ground radar.
Then came TCAS which meant that the aircraft themselves could interrogate other aircraft's transponder in Mode S and thereby obtain the height, climb or descent rate, and other flight parameters to calculate if there was a risk of collision or near miss.
The new scheme will enable a (or many) satellites to interrogate all aircraft in a pre-determined pattern and relay the information to ATC or anyone who is interested. How many times a particular aircraft is plotted I don't know, but there's no point in taking a plot every minute or so. Most of the time on a long over water route there are few TCAS replies, never mind alerts as ATC route the aircraft and provide altitude separation to avoid any conflicts.

 

[Lawman51]

The current systems in the US report their position every 30 seconds, or that is what it claims in the literature I have found on it. It is like an automated beacon for use in Amateur Radio. I am sure they could have it update less often or more often depending upon the software adjustability. My issue from a computer programming standpoint is that without authentication if someone wanted to do something it is not that difficult with this system. I will not say how to do it, but anyone with a little radio experience could scratch up something pretty easy. I know I could.

 

[DaveNF2G]

No system will be reliable for flight safety until it is mandated for all aircraft. That won't happen in the USA until at least 2020.

 

[Voyager]

Hey - that's sooner than the ProVoice shutdown, so....

 

[jwt873]

Are you talking about the radar fitted to aircraft or the radar on the ground attempting to track the aircraft?

The radar in the aircraft is used for weather spotting, not for seeing other aircraft.
The radar on the ground is no longer 'primary' radar, it is 'secondary' that requires the aircraft to send out a data burst on 1090MHz when swept by the ground radar. .

Yes, it's the surveillance radar on the ground that will be replaced. (To be clear, it's not my opinion) .. It's listed on the bottom of the link I posted. ADS-B Technologies Website

Yes, you're right. Traditionally, aircraft are fitted with transponders. When the current ground based surveillance radar beam hits an aircraft, the aircraft transponder responds (squawks) it's information back to the ground.

ADS-B doesn't use the transponder system. It broadcasts without the need for interrogation. These broadcasts can be picked up on the ground, by other aircraft, and soon, by satellites. It will be the heart of the Nextgen system which is due to be fully implemented by 2020 https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/ (This is what the original poster was talking about).

Out of interest, I have a 1090Mhz ADS-B receiver. It lets me identify all those contrails in the sky over my house. I also feed the information over the internet to a server run by a web outfit called Flightradar24. They provide worldwide aircraft positioning for the public. ADS-B aircraft positions on this web site are real-time. https://www.flightradar24.com/ARPT32/833431f

 

[Lawman51]

No system will be reliable for flight safety until it is mandated for all aircraft. That won't happen in the USA until at least 2020.

Industry standard is all aircraft have this installed as part of the basic electronics gear since about 2012 or 2013, By 2020 all commercial aircraft have to the system to operate, currently all major US airlines and the FEDEX and UPS fleets are utilizing this system on all aircraft that have them, with the remainder of their fleets to be updated as replaced and/or upgraded by 2020. If you check the website mentioned in the op's post you can see most aircraft are already using this system. Just in the northeast for instance you pull that up and will see about 3000 aircraft being tracked at any given time. Every now and then you catch a DHS or DOJ flight in the northeastern sector going from Cleveland to DC.

 

[Boatanchor]

Pointless

Seems a little pointless to use ADSB though.
The ADSB transponder is one of the easiest/first things to be shut down if nefarious actions are intended.

They need a separate position reporting transponder system that cannot be easily switched off or isolated.

 

[Lawman51]

That was one of my concerns, as well as how easy it would be to make a dummy transponder and create all kinds of headaches and pack up and move and do it again...