Low flying aircraft alarm

[Upthecreek]

Good idea would like to have one
Keep up the great work
Keep us informed....

 

[Lelantos]

Gliders are usually marked by zones, I'm not sure if they leave the zones though.

When you see that symbol on a sectional it means there is a glider port there, so you should expect gliders being towed up by tow planes and then circling to gain altitude. It is extremely common for them to leave those areas in search of good flights. In fact, to not do so is considered quite boring by many.

 

[AstroSurf]

I'm so glad you switched to the cheaper alternative. I picked up a Pi Zero W and a cheap SDR to try this out. Can you share the code and perhaps give me some pointers to change the screen update function to write to a text file on the SD card instead? With the Pi Zero W couldn't you just spit the data out over WiFi and receive it on an Android phone or other device sharing WiFi on the same network with a very basic app? Throw the Pi Zero W in Access Point mode and connect to it from Android Phone/Tablet. If any of that is too much work I'll probably just pick up a small LCD instead. I'm excited to play with this setup!

 

[normr]

I think it would be great if you started making and selling them, you could put it up on Kickstarter to get your production funding and if you could find a company to start mass production it would sell to every drone owner out there

 

[ErikDF]

I totaly agree with normr

 

[Brojon]

Cool hack. If I understand correctly with a TV dongle and the right s/w you can catch ADS-B?


Glider pilots sometimes do cross country flights which can take many hours to complete and cover hundreds of km. This is more prevalent in Europe, I believe.

Looks like an SDR - Software Definable Radio. You can get 'em on Amazon for like $15 or less. I think most people use SDR-Radio or SDR# to program and listen on Windows. There are packages to communicate with it on all platforms.

Like this one:
Amazon.com: SQdeal Mini USB RTL-SDR & ADS-B Receiver Set, RTL2832U & R820T2 Tuner, MCX Input. Low-Cost Software Defined Radio Compatible with Many SDR Software Packages. R820T2 Tuner & ESD-Safe Antenna Input.: Electronics

 

[dwallersv]

Impressive! I wonder what percentage of civilian aircraft have ADS-B onboard at this time?

All of them by 2020 (FAA requirement).

You can get a portable ADS-B transciever for around $900. With mandated wide adoption, like GPS this will be reduced to an inexpensive chipset because of economies of scale, and sUAVs will be sporting this technology -- mandated -- within 5 years.

My opinion.

 

[rstekeur]

flightradar24 has a website also

Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker!

 

[AlanTheBeast]

All of them by 2020 (FAA requirement).

You can get a portable ADS-B transciever for around $900. With mandated wide adoption, like GPS this will be reduced to an inexpensive chipset because of economies of scale, and sUAVs will be sporting this technology -- mandated -- within 5 years.

My opinion.

Aircraft GPS receivers are expensive. They've never benefited from economy of scale. Other issues such as certification get very expensive. While there is room for ADS-B to get cheaper, I doubt it will ever get commodity cheap.

I was thinking earlier today that a synthetic ADS-B could be done for drones where the information on the position of any UAV above (say) 200' AGL via the internet. Then local radars could squitter the position report to aircraft that were near the UAV. Or perhaps cell towers could be equipped to do so.

To do this, obviously the controller would need to be in cell or wi-fi coverage.

Edit: Or for that matter the ADS-B transceiver could actually be on the ground with the operator.

 

[Wersh]

If someone could share the code this would be an amazing project. Cheers for making this

 

[Philsmith76]

Any news on this? I would really like to have a simple alarm to alert to low aircraft also. It would be a terrific aid to “sense and avoid” without having to get a M200/210 with building ads-b and overlaid on GO

 

[Mission North]

The flight alarm is coming along slowly when I have spare time. Finished building the latest version this morning and used it this afternoon. I ditched the epaper display as it was too expensive and not reliable. I am now using a small OLED display which updates faster but is not as easy to read in direct sunlight.

I have just ordered an 'Adafruit OLED Bonnet' which has a joysick and buttons as well as the display, and should plug straight onto the Raspberry Pi. A small piezo buzzer, four LEDs and a nano sdr dongle, all fitted into a 3d printed box makes for a neat device.

Using a Pi Zero W lets the device operate as a wifi access point, and I'm figuring out how to set it up as a 'captive portal' so that it automatically takes you to its own web page when you connect to its wifi.

I will release the design once I have a version that is easy to build and reliable.

 

[Philsmith76]

Wow great to hear. You really have put a lot of thought into this and you are much more knowledgeable then I am on this stuff. The display sounds nice but I the simpler side of things...a device that would be able to clamp to the controller and give audible alerts like “traffic 2 miles 500 feet” would be more than helpful or if a gps/compass was able to be incorporated then “traffic Right 2 miles 500 feet”

Keep up the work...this is really needed to help with sense and avoid

 

[Mission North]

It would be great if it could say where the traffic was. Unfortunately a lot of the traffic we need to know about doesn't broadcast its location. Most airliners do, but they are generally too high to be a problem to us. Light aircraft and military generally do not, for different reasons. But most at least show their altitude, and all transponders give their id code. From the id code it is fairly easy to detect RAF or USAF aircraft, so the device warns of those with a red flashing LED, and beeps unless they are above a certain height. If the aircraft id military and not showing its altitude it assumes the worst case and beeps an alarm. Police and Air Ambulance beep and flash blue. Other aircraft below 2000' beep and flash yellow, and there's a green flash to show that aircraft are being detected but not a hazard. And actually that is probably enough to be a cheap and usable system. But for the extra size and cost of the display it adds useful information, showing the altitude and aircraft type. Plug in an HDMI monitor and it can show callsign and distance and direction (relative to a latitude and longitude that you can preset). And once I have the web page code sorted it will be able to show that information on a phone or tablet connected to its wifi.

But meanwhile I have work and family commitments before building toys.

 

[ID77]

Very impressive...

 

[ManuCH]

That's a very impressive and interesting project. Keep it up!