hi. i’m wondering if it would be possible to use a microcontroller like a rp2350 or an ESP32S3 or something of the sort. i would be using it fairly simply, with a crappy antenna and just trying to pick up planes flying like directly overhead, so i don’t need to to do much processing. would this be possible at all, ignoring the difficulties with setting up an sdr with the antenna?
The message processing/decoding itself should be within reach. If you use the message processing bits of dump1090 it’s probably close, but may need some tweaking for particularly small CPU/RAM environments. I know it’ll run on openwrt-type hardware at least. What you then do with the messages is an open question.
The DSP work is likely not within reach of a slower MCU – you would need some helper hardware to do message detection / demodulation. Simplest case would be something akin to a Beast (and talk to the FPGA directly rather than via USB)