The OpenSky Network is a non-profit association based in Switzerland that provides open access of

flight tracking Flight tracking is a service that involves the tracking of flights, aircraft and airport activity, often using software. Overview Flight tracking enables travellers as well as those picking up travellers after a flight to know whether a flight h ...

control data. It was set up as a research project by several universities and government entities with the goal to improve the security, reliability and efficiency of the

airspace Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is the ...

. Its main function is to collect, process and store

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

data and provide open access to this data to the public. Similar to many existing flight trackers such as Flightradar24 and

FlightAware FlightAware is an American multi-national technology company that provides real-time, historical, and predictive flight tracking data and products. , it is the world's largest flight tracking platform, with a network of over 32,000 ADS-B gro ...

, the OpenSky Network consists of a multitude of sensors (currently around 1000, mostly concentrated in Europe and the US), which are connected to the Internet by volunteers, industrial supporters, academic, and governmental organizations.Romani de Oliveira, Italo & Magalhaes Junior, Jose & P Leão, Bruno & M De Conto, Augusto. (2017). Assessing Coverage of a Dynamic Airborne Surveillance Network for Air Traffic. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.15173.35047. All collected raw data is archived in a large historical database, containing over 23 trillion air traffic control messages (November 2020). The database is primarily used by researchers from different areas to analyze and improve air traffic control technologies and processes. The main air traffic control communication technologies currently used by the OpenSky Network are the

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Automatic may refer to: Music Bands * Automatic (band), Australian rock band * Automatic (American band), American rock band * The Automatic, a Welsh alternative rock band Albums * ''Automatic'' (Jack Bruce album), a 1983 electronic rock ...

(ADS-B),

Mode S The aviation transponder interrogation modes are the standard formats of pulsed sequences from an interrogating Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) or similar Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system. The reply format is usually refe ...

and since late 2018 also

FLARM FLARM is proprietary electronic system used to selectively alert pilots to potential collisions between aircraft. It is not formally an implementation of ADS-B, as it is optimized for the specific needs of light aircraft, not for long-range commun ...

. All technologies provide immediate and detailed aircraft information over the publicly accessible 1090 MHz radio frequency channel using

software-defined radio Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where components that have been traditionally implemented in analog hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented by me ...

receivers.

Aircraft Tracking Data

Currently, the network tracks and displays several thousand flights at any given time. The OpenSky Network offers access to its data through a variety of means, including several

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

s and an

Impala The impala or rooibok (''Aepyceros melampus'') is a medium-sized antelope found in eastern and southern Africa. The only extant member of the genus '' Aepyceros'' and tribe Aepycerotini, it was first described to European audiences by Germa ...

shell. Data from the OpenSky Network is free for research done in academic and governmental institutions. Commercial licenses are also available, as are branded software-defined receiver kits. A comparison in February 2017 found that it still had significantly less coverage than both FlightAware and Flightradar24 in February 2017. However, a separate study found its data quality to be superior.Zintl, Michael. (2017). Rekonstruktion von Flugzuständen aus ADS-B-Daten. Bachelor thesis. Technical University of Munich.

History

The OpenSky Network started in 2012 as a research project between

armasuisse The Federal Office for Defence Procurement (Armasuisse) is a federal agency of the Swiss Confederation. It is the procurement organization for armaments of Switzerland and is affiliated with the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection ...

(Switzerland),

University of Kaiserslautern Technical University of Kaiserslautern (German: ''Technische Universität Kaiserslautern'', also known as TU Kaiserslautern or TUK) is a public university, public research university in Kaiserslautern, Germany. There are numerous institutes arou ...

(Germany), and the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

(UK). In 2015, the OpenSky Network association was founded in order to guarantee the continuous development of the network towards a completely open air traffic control sensor network with worldwide coverage. By November 2022, data from the OpenSky Network has been used in over 350 academic publications. The community gathers in a yearly workshop or symposium, which, since its 7th iteration in 2019, publishes academic proceedings.Proceedings of the 7th OpenSky Workshop
DBLP

References

External links

OpenSky Network Live Air Traffic
* {{github, openskynetwork Aviation websites Internet properties established in 2015 Flight tracking software

Aircraft Tracking Data

History

See also

References

External links