How are flights tracked in real time?

The flight tracking mechanism is one of the most prominent technologies that has allowed many today to monitor their flight path, starting from the plane's take-off to the landing stage, including pre-scheduled appointments and sometimes identifying emergency situations or possible delays.

Data are collected to track aircraft from several sources, including ADS-B (Autonomous Autonomous Surveillance Transmission System) data, where the aircraft regularly sends its location and other information to the ground control device, the MLAT system to calculate the time difference and estimate the location of the aircraft, as well as the radar data side by side. With schedule information and flight status of airlines and airports.

According to Flight Radar, one of the most prominent companies specializing in company tracking, the basic technology it uses to receive flight information is called automatic surveillance broadcasting. The plane gets its position from a GPS (satellite) navigation source, while the ADS-B transceiver transmits. On board the plane a signal that contains the location to be captured by a receiver connected to the company’s network, and then displayed in the site or applications.

According to the company, the ADS-B is a relatively new technology under development, and it estimates that nearly 70% of all commercial passenger aircraft (80% in Europe, 60% in the United States) have an ADS transmitter and receiver.

She pointed out that for general aviation, this figure may be less than 20%, explaining that the percentage of aircraft equipped with ADS-B receivers is increasing steadily, and it will become mandatory for most aircraft around the world by 2020, when ADS-B will replace the primary radar as a monitoring method. Primary used by ATC.

The ADS-B system enables the on-board aircraft to determine its location by transmitting information every second, in addition to altitude, speed and direction information, as well as the aircraft's identification code, and due to the high frequency used (1090 MHz), the coverage from each receiver is limited to about 250 -450 km (150-250 miles) in all directions depending on the location, the further away the plane is from the receiver, it must fly to a higher altitude for the receiver to cover.

In some areas with coverage from several receivers, the locations of aircraft not equipped with ADS-B are also calculated with the help of (MLAT), meaning the calculation of the time difference or (the time difference to arrival), by measuring the time taken to receive the signal from the aircraft and calculating its location, and there is a need for four One or more receivers receive signals from the same aircraft, to make this technology work, according to "Flight Radar".

"Flight Radar" added that tracking flights via satellite is the latest step in its quest to obtain global ADS-B coverage, as satellites equipped with ADS-B receivers collect data from aircraft outside the ground network coverage area and send that data to the company's network. .

In general, the satellite-based ADS-B system increases the coverage of flights over the ocean where terrestrial reception is not possible.

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