Setting up the ADSB Tracker
I originally set this project up back in February, and it has been running reliably ever since. The ADSB_Display project is a custom application built around my local ADSB receiver to track and categorize aircraft flying overhead.
The core of the project relies on a Python script (data_source.py) that ingests live aircraft data from the receiver. Instead of just displaying raw coordinates, I wanted to build a system that actively categorized the data and tracked the unique types of aircraft passing by.
Tracking Unique Aircraft
One of the main features I implemented was persistent tracking. The application maintains a persistent record of all unique aircraft types encountered.
To make the display more readable and useful, I added several key features:
- Unique Type Tracking: The system initializes and displays a running count of unique aircraft types seen over time.
- Visual Indicators: Newly identified aircraft types are highlighted with a star icon, making it easy to spot rare or new visitors to the area.
- Description Cleaning: Aircraft descriptions are parsed and cleaned. Manufacturer names are removed to keep the descriptions concise, which is especially useful for long military aircraft designations.
- Custom Highlighting: Specific flights are color-coded for quick identification. For example, “OU” flights are highlighted in red, and military aircraft are highlighted in blue.
I also built a dedicated “Unique Aircraft” page within the application to display a comprehensive list of all the unique aircraft types the receiver has captured, along with their last seen times and full descriptions.
Future Plans
The next phase of this project is to build a standalone hardware display. I plan to set up a Raspberry Pi Zero with an LED matrix display. This unit will automatically flip through and display the details of the closest aircraft currently in range, bringing the tracking data into a physical format.
This Python project ultimately laid the foundation for the live web map embed that is now integrated directly into this blog. You can check out the live ADSB display project yourself at atm.abkmj.com.