ADSBee, an open source dual band embedded ADS-B receiver for anything
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I grew frustrated with closed source ADS-B receivers a few years ago, and wanted to build a true low cost embedded ADS-B receiver from scratch for low power applications. I ended up developing a custom radio frontend that uses RP2040 PIO for Mode S preamble detection and demodulation, and also released the first open soruce implementation of UAT decoding on an RF MCU from TI (which works somewhat beyond the publicly stated specs for the chip). Today, ADSBee is a fully featured dual-band ADS-B receiver, with Mode S, ADSB, UAT ADSB, UAT TIS-B / FIS-B, a ton of configurable reporting protocols, WiFi / USB / Ethernet, and a web server. Beta testers have been using ADSBee to feed everything from online data aggregators to drone autopilot systems and tablets running Electronic Flight Bag apps like ForeFlight.I'd love to hear what people think about the project, or answer any questions. I've been posting regular updates to the blog on my website, it's been a very fun journey taking an open source hardware project from an idea to a business that makes and ships real things: https://pantsforbirds.com/blog/
HN · launched Jan 1, 2026 · 8 upvotes (top 58%) · 1 view
Niche: open-source hardware and maker electronics · 181 launches, 4 in the last 7 days ▼ -64% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Hardware & robotics
- Prosumer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 181 launches in open-source hardware and maker electronics →
Could you build this?
No This is a custom hardware device with RF frontend design and microsecond-level RP2040 PIO assembly programming for demodulating Mode S signals.
What it would actually take: Involves custom PCB RF design (1090 MHz/978 MHz filtering and amplification) paired with an RP2040 microcontroller running PIO state machine code for Mode S pulse position demodulation. The hard parts include RF circuit layout, antenna impedance matching, signal-to-noise optimization, and cycle-accurate embedded assembly/firmware, requiring electrical engineering and embedded systems domain expertise.
Discussion
3 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Electronic flight bag devices, Existing MLAT networks
Concerns raised: Fleet management and centralized control complexity, GPS support not yet available
Feature requests: GPS support for location reporting, Centralized fleet management for multiple devices, Native integration with online aggregators
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 94 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #52 of 95 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 61 days after the earliest competitor.
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