Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast Investigating and Message Decoding

Abstract

This research deals with the definition for a new aircraft surveillance system, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) which is being introduced by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with mandated implementation in the United States by the year 2020. ADS-B is a system used to determine the position of an aircraft and then broadcast that information, along with its altitude, call sign, heading, and aircraft type automatically (i.e., without an SSR interrogation signal) to other aircrafts and to air traffic control ground facilities. It was built using similar aspects of the current aircraft surveillance transmission mode called Mode S or mode select. There are two optional frequencies available for ADS-B, the first one is Mode S 1090ES and the second is UAT 978 MHZ, with data link length 112 bits. The main focus of this thesis has been on ADS-B messages receiving and decoding. The MATLAB has been used to decode these messages, then the decoded messages have been displayed on Google Earth Application by using an API between it and MATLAB.A positional ADS-B message has been used in this research which is downlink format (DF) 17, subtype 5 messages.