What is the head of the fame track tracking website overnight?

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"Niche Civil Aviation" has the function of tracking flights.

A "niche civil aviation good thing", which was originally famous, became popular overnight.

In fact, the function of tracking the flight timely, attracting 300,000 people to pour in, and directly made the small break website exploded, and it collapsed.

Now you can take a look at the website interface named Flightradar24.

It's like this, the map will show various aircraft flying in the sky. Select the one you want to query (a small red aircraft in the picture), you can get detailed flight information, and see its real -time flight trajectory on the map (purple line in the picture).

Is it quite convenient? With this artifact, female pot friends no longer have to worry about me being late.

Saying back to the home, there are some knowledge in it: Flightradar24 can track the routes so accurate, and even Airbus, Boeing and other companies are using it?

Let's study together.

Use open source data tracking flight

In simple terms, Flightradar24 mainly uses open source data to achieve flight tracking.

According to the official website information, Fligtradar24 combines a variety of data sources, including ADS-B, MLAT, radar data, as well as airlines and airport timetables and flight status information.

Ads-B

ADS-B, that is, the radio automatic related monitoring. This is the main technology used by Flightradar24 to receive flight information.

This technology is generally played like this:

The aircraft determines its own position through the satellite navigation system

The aircraft regularly broadcasts the location information through the ADS-B response machine installed on board

The ADS-B ground receiver of Flightradar24 receives relevant signals

These data are updated to the website and APP of Flightradar24

In fact, it is not only useful for the tracking websites such as the ground empty pipe and Flightradar24, but the ADS-B also facilitates the pilot on board.

The data of ADS-B contains additional information such as aircraft height, direction, speed, and conflict alarm information, route turning point information.

And compared with the radar monitoring system, the ADS-B data is updated fast, the data accuracy is high, the transmission information is rich, and the installation and use costs are much lower.

Therefore, on an aircraft equipped with the ADS-B receiving device, pilots can also use this to obtain traffic information, self-evasion, and avoid collision.

At present, most aircraft in the world are required to be equipped with ADS-B device.

Fligtradar24 has the world's largest ADS-B network with more than 30,000 ground receivers.

Mlat

But not all aircraft are equipped with the ADS-B device. If you encounter this unopened situation, you can also use MLAT to track.

The full name of Mlat Multilateration, mainly through wireless positioning technology such as TDOA, to calculate the position of not carrying ADS-B equipment aircraft.

Simply put, Mlat uses the signal sent by the old -fashioned response aircraft on the plane. The time required to measure the receiving signal through multiple receiving devices can calculate the location of the plane.

The required reception equipment is more than 4 and 4 units.

In addition to the two data mentioned above, the data sources of Flightradar24 also include satellite data, North American radar data, and North American real -time data from the OGN (OGN).

By the way, Flightradar24 has a lot of fun small features.

For example, click the "3D View" button in the lower left corner.

You can see the 3D effect of the plane soaring in the air.

ps. Some advanced functions need to be paid.

I amateur project to the most popular flight tracking application

Now, whether in the Apple App Store, or Google Play, Flightradar24 is one of the most popular travel apps, with a total of more than 40 million downloads.

However, Flightradar24 was originally a amateur project.

Mikael Robertsson and Olov Lindberg from Sweden and Olov Lindberg have noticed the ADS-B airplane signal communication method.

So, they bought a few small signal receivers on the roof and could follow the plane flying over Stockholm.

In 2006, they created a website that could compare the ticket price and added the function of flight tracking to the website.

Soon, this model attracted many aviation enthusiasts, and some people expressed their willingness to install a receiver on their roofs to collect data for the website.

As a result, the tracking range of Flightradar24 further expands.

By 2009, they officially opened the network to the outside world. Anyone who has ADS-B device can upload data to them.

In addition, there are fans who helped them write a software that can obtain various information from the ADS-B signal.

It can be seen that on the Flightradar24 official website, the starting place, destination, call sign, location, height, aerial speed and direction of the flight, and even data such as aircraft driving instrument settings and remaining oil can be provided. Providing such timely and comprehensive information, Flightradar24 also attracted many professional aircrafts, such as air controller to view the real -time situation of each aircraft.

In many major news events, Flightradar24 can also be seen.

In 2010, the outbreak of the Icelandic volcano led to the cancellation of European flights in Europe. Many media were using Flightradar24 to track flight information.

In 2014, Malaysia Airlines MH17 occurred, and Flightradar24 also provided many information on that day flights.

The two incidents occurred with huge traffic to Flightradar24.

According to the founder of Robertson, the outbreak of the Icelandic volcano in 2010 caused Flightradar24 to exceed 4 million.

In 2014, air crash frequently occurred, and the number of access to the website rose by about 50 times.

It is also probably from this period of time. Flightradar24 has gradually transformed into commercialization, developed its own APP, and slowly expanded the range of signal receivers from Europe to global.

In addition, such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), all aircraft, including private helicopters, must be equipped with ADS-B launchers by 2020.

Now, Flightradar24 has developed into one of the world's most popular flight dynamic information tracking applications.

According to the official website, Flightradar24 tracks more than 180,000 flights a day, and more than 2 million daily live users.

One more thing

It is worth mentioning that the Flightradar24 filtered some data to protect privacy security because the aircraft range using the ADS-B system to protect privacy security.

However, there are also accidents. For example, in 2014, the flight routes and location information of the special aircraft by high -level leaders such as Japanese Prime Minister and other high -level leaders can be seen directly on Flightradar24.

There are many websites like Flightradar24, such as ADS-B Exchange, Flightaware, OpenSky Network, Radarbox24, Planefinder and so on.

Among them, ADS-B Exchange is a relatively wild road. It allows users to view flight information of celebrities and politicians private aircraft, and even military aircraft information can be found.

As more and more websites are, many news about private voyages have also increased.

For example, some people have found that this year Taylor Swift ranked first in the celebrities by carbon emissions from private jets.

Even 19 -year -old high school students have opened more than 30 robotic accounts to disclose flight information of private aircraft. The celebrities involved are Musk, supermodel Karley Jana and so on.

Earlier, a enthusiast said in an interview that the experience of tracking flight trends gave him a feeling of "bird watching".

Edit: Yu Tengkai

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