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Software-defined radios (SDR) are gaining in popularity, and it’s not hard to see why — using them, your computer can tune into in an enormous range of frequencies, including FM radio, unencrypted police and fire bands, aircraft transponders, and in many countries, digital TV. The most popular SDR devices for the money are known as RTL-SDR because they’re based on the Realtek RTL2832U, a demodulator chip that supports the USB 2.0 interface.
With an inexpensive RTL-SDR USB dongle and properly configured software, you can track commercial airplane flights and output their locations to mapping software to see exactly where they are in the sky. In this project I’ll show you how to do just that, using a very affordable single-board computer, the BeagleBone Black. While mine is not an original or exhaustive account of the technology, it’s a useful aggregation and an example of the amazing things software and specific hardware can accomplish.
There are two main software packages to configure. First the drivers for the RTL-SDR USB dongle, which require very little userland configuration, just installation. And second, dump1090, a program that tunes your SDR to 1090MHz, collects the data, and outputs it on a locally hosted website.
H/T to David Taylor of Edinburgh, Scotland and Drew Fustini of Chicago, Illinois for very helpful project write-ups.
EDITORIAL CORRECTION: Originally, Step 9 said that Cloud9 runs by default on port 8081. Reader jkridner provided a corrective: “[It] is Apache that is running at port 8080, not Cloud9 IDE. Port 80 is the BoneScript web server built on node.js, and Cloud9 IDE is on port 3000.”
For those who don’t have an ‘ssh’ client, they can simply browse to port 3000 at http://192.168.7.2:3000 if over USB or http://beaglebone.local:3000 if over Ethernet/WiFi from their web browser to use the shell provided by Cloud9 IDE.
Also, it is Apache that is running at port 8080, not Cloud9 IDE. Port 80 is the BoneScript web server built on node.js.
Thanks for the great project. My first rig was a Hammarlund HQ-110A Receiver. This would have stretched the imagination of a good science fiction writer back then.
They made a very nice enclosure though so when I build this it will go into a retro box modeled after that cast aluminum front panel.
One thing about the antenna…… get rid of the stock antenna ( it will work when the plane is near by) but make a 1/4 wave gp antenna or one of the ones mentioned in this article http://www.rtl-sdr.com/adsb-aircraft-radar-with-rtl-sdr/
i had mine hooked up to my gp antenna that i use for ham radio ( vhf ) and it wasnt cut for the 1090 freq and i picked up a bunch of planes. Now that i have made a correct antenna I pick up a ton of aircraft from many many miles away. I also have it up about 20 ft in the air, I also use an antenna tuner but didnt really get much out of it as long as you can make it close to the directions it will work !!
Any idea why I might be getting this error for Step 5?
[email protected]:~# clone git://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git
-bash: clone: command not found
[email protected]:~# git clone git://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git
Cloning into ‘rtl-sdr’…
fatal: unable to connect to git.osmocom.org:
git.osmocom.org: Name or service not known
never mind. ethernet wasn’t connected.
If you’re encountering the message “error while loading shared libraries: librtlsdr.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory” when running dump1090, try running “ldconfig” after installing libsub-1.0-0-dev.
Thanks for this great article. I had one problem with making and running dump1090 and solved. So I help this helps others. The error I got when running dump1090 was
error while loading shared libraries: librtlsdr.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
There are two solutions to this
1.export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib/
needed each time you login – or
2. Permanent solution
echo “/usr/local/lib/” > /etc/ld.so.conf
which loads each time you boot.
and now I can see the plane data flying past :)
Following the suggestion in Step 2 I updated and upgraded the Debian distro on the BeagleBone Black. Near the end of the upgrade there were multiple errors related to “inserv”.
A quick Googling turned up this Google Group post, which solved it for me:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/beagleboard/LPjCn4LEY2I
FYI, in case you run into the same issue.
Can anyone help me out on this? I’m following the directions in MAKE magazine, and when I try to compile the dump1090 with make I get this error:
gcc -O2 -g -Wall -W `pkg-config –cflags librtlsdr` -c dump1090.c
Package librtlsdr was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `librtlsdr.pc’
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package ‘librtlsdr’ found
In file included from dump1090.c:31:0:
dump1090.h:60:25: fatal error: rtl-sdr.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make: *** [dump1090.o] Error 1
Can anyone out there help me out? Many thanks!
I tried the SSH connection to my new Beaglebone Black Rev C, and beaglebone.local did not work at all. 192.168.7.2 made a PuTTY window appear with a green box in the upper left corner. No keyboard response, and it timed out with an error message. SSH has port 22 by default. Should I use another port, perhaps 80?
I have power from a USB cable, and an ethernet cable hooked up. Just to the Beaglebone, the RTL2832U is on the way.
What are my options?
Thanks for an interesting article. I would like to see it work.
Reinhard Arnold
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Hey cool. We started @dgsn_bigwhoop for the NASA Spaceapps 2015 and their opensource AirTraffic Tracking challenge. I worked on it in our local hackerspace shackspace today again, and then I found your article. Coincidence? :)
We also rapped the mentioned Dump1090 to Python.
>> https://github.com/aerospaceresearch/DGSN_bigwhoop
Excellent article David, a nice application using those inexpensive wide-band dongle SDRs. These diminutive receivers, originally designed for TV/Radio reception in other countries (not USA though) have been embraced by radio hobbyists worldwide due to their wide applications as cheap multi-mode receivers. And, with the proper software, they can be used to decode CW, RTTY, APRS, ACARS, DGPS, and a multitude of other digital modes. Or, you can just use it as a simple AM/FM/shortwave receiver or police/fire monitor. Thanks for opening up the world of SDR to the readers! Great job!
For windows users, there is a quickstart guide here;;
http://www.atouk.com/wordpress/?wpdmdl=395
and a simple antenna project here;
http://www.atouk.com/wordpress/?wpdmdl=397
Nice article, thank you.
I used an RTL-SDR with my BeagleBone Black to detect FBI aerial surveillance flights: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/how-i-tracked-fbi-aerial-surveillance/
I would recommend not using antirez’ version of dump1090; It’s no longer being updated. Malcolm Robb’s version has many new features and bug fixes: https://github.com/MalcolmRobb/dump1090
And don’t worry too much about using the stock RTL-SDR antenna. I’ve picked up aircraft over 100 miles away with it.
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When I try to run dump1090, I get an error while loading shared libraries: librtlsdr.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. It is present in /usr/local/lib. What am I missing?
Hi, thanks for this tutorial. I’ve followed all the steps and everything seems to be ok, but the browser outputs this: “Error opening HTML file: No such file or directory”.
am I missing something – what is the beagleboard for?
Well well I am a old timer alright, any of you smart guys can help me building the SDR USB project what I saw in youtube using VB6, don’t laugh at me because, i am in love with this platform ever since my wife taught me nine years ago. help me please. I be much obliged.
Jef.
I also had issues with rtl driver. The process that worked for me with the Latest Version of debian as of July, 2016 is:
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
lsusb
apt-get install cmake
apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev
https://github.com/MalcolmRobb/dump1090
cd rtl-sdr
cmake ./ -DDETACH_KERNEL_DRIVER=ON -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON
make
make install
HI John,
Do try this link: http://photobyte.org/rtl-sdr-segmentation-error-solved/
It may be due to the segmentation error
Great article and steps detailing the setup process. However, i experience difficulty displaying the captured information on google map. I am using Malcolm Robb’s version of dump1090. Anyone else is experiencing this difficulty?
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