German researchers develop new technology to track flights using satellites

Researchers at German Aerospace Center, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR), have developed a new receiver and antenna to track aircraft from satellites.

Developed in partnership with the DLR Institute of Flight Guidance in Braunschweig, the new technology will locate the ADS-B (automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast) signals that flights broadcast using a special antenna.

The receiver will be carried onboard the European Proba-V satellite, which is set to liftoff on a Vega launcher with the primary mission of observing vegetation from space.

Scientists at DLR intend to test over the next two years whether continuous monitoring of aviation routes is possible.

In the first test, the characteristics of how an aircraft radiates the ADS-B signal will be recorded.

An aircraft flying over the major oceans, large areas without infrastructure or the polar regions is no longer trackable by ground radar stations as the range of the stations is insufficient.

DLR Institute of Space Systems in Bremen department head Jörg Behrens said the aircraft continuously transmitted ADS-B signals, which carry information such as altitude and speed and the researchers intend to make use of this.

"Until now, no satellite had been used to receive ADS-B signals," Behrens said.

Initial experiments have proved the project to be successful; in 2009, during a series of high-altitude balloon flights conducted in northern Sweden, the receiver was able to pinpoint an aircraft flying 1,100km away, from a height of about 30km, according to DLR.

In 2012, the researchers flew their receiver on a balloon at an altitude of 40km and analysed the interfering signals that it must cope with in a heavily flown and radar-monitored area.

A similar DLR project is likely to takeoff by the end of this year aboard an Indian launcher; the AISat satellite will receive signals from ships using a 4m-long, deployable helical antenna.

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Image: The European Proba-V satellite, which is set to lift-off on a Vega launcher, will carry the receiver developed by the DLR scientists. Photo: courtesy of DLR.