An ESP32 based plane radar for my desk

(blog.ktz.me)

45 points | by alexktz 2 hours ago ago

10 comments

  • amatecha 2 hours ago

    Looks pretty cool, though kinda "cheating" by pulling from adsb.fi - though I think you'd need something a lot more powerful than an ESP32 to receive and decode ADS-B ;)

    • sephamorr 2 hours ago

      I would actually expect the math to decode ads-b traffic is substantially less complex than, for example, a TLS connection.

      • greggsy an hour ago

        It is trivial to decode, but don’t forget that tls is extensively optimised on most networking stacks.

    • bigiain an hour ago

      Using ADS-B and calling it a "radar" feels wrong to me.

      (But is is a cool project)

      • daemonologist an hour ago

        Agreed, and even SSR always felt like cheating imo. I wanna see someone build a primary radar on an esp 32.

    • punnerud an hour ago

      Actually possible to receive and decode ADS-B on ESP32, but MLAT is failing (tried hard but not found a trick yet).

      Biggest problem isn’t that it’s not powerful enough, but the USB port bandwidth don’t match most SDR.

      Using some clever tricks you can receive parts of the message on a slower USB and be able to decode ADS-B

      • 1e1a an hour ago

        Why do you need to send the samples over USB?

    • greggsy an hour ago

      You could fit a pi zero and rtl in an enclosure not much larger than the one they’ve printed.

  • freitasm an hour ago

    Well, a radar-like display, then. But not a radar.

  • NooneAtAll3 an hour ago

    radar *display*

    making esp32-based radar emitter would've been cool, tho