Building a Live ADS-B Plane Radar with ESP32 and a Round Display
An ESP32 based plane radar for my desk
After a busy week at Devrelcon in NYC, I built a desk plane radar using an ESP32-C3 and a 1.28-inch round display. The project pulls live ADS-B traffic to show aircraft distance and bearing. I encountered tight tolerances with the original Makerworld 3D model, so I switched to an alternative design. I also customized the firmware to show flight origins, destinations, and local weather, while adding authenticated OTA updates for easier maintenance.
Reality though was, in practice, it's not actually that great.
- MrGilbert
Looks like several of these have come up in the past months, with the last one being a real product (that was on pre-order)
- https://makerworld.com/models/2872376-esp32-plane-radar-live... (referenced by the linked article)
- https://github.com/AnthonySturdy/micro-radar
- https://www.gadgies.co.uk/shop/p/product-3-szb2y-gzh2r-tzhkx...
Personally, I really like them. It's a nice gadget. :)
- freitasm
Well, a radar-like display, then. But not a radar.
- boguscoder
Perhaps I didn’t read it thoroughly enough but it seems that lat/long of the “radar” are expected to be entered by user, I think using wifi positioning could be of great assist and could be done from mcu itself without involving web portal, though maybe portal already does it (didn’t get to see it)
- hnc99rxjlw
Simple but often overlooked
- NooneAtAll3
radar *display*
making esp32-based radar emitter would've been cool, tho