Get data from dump1090 via command line/python

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
1

Hi…me again,

I’m trying to get the number of aircraft with positions from dump1090 via the command line (or even better python). I’ve done some searches both here and github but I can’t seem to find where dump1090 is installed, let alone talk to it. I’m running the v3.5.3 sd card image in a Pi2. When I ssh in and list directories I get nothing - any tips on where I should be looking for the dump1090 install or how to get data from it ?

The endgame is a to drive some ws2812b Leds (which are already working) to give a visualisation of the volume of traffic.

Thanks for reading, you have a nice helpful community here.

2

This is not a direct solution, but may help

Exploring Port 30003 and 30106

3

Dump1090 is installed in the /usr/bin directory.
command to find program is “which dump1090-fa”

If you just want to have the plane count you can read the json files made by dump1090. When dump1090 is running it will output json files to /var/run/dump1090-fa . You want to read the aircraft.json file or stats.json file depending on the exact data you want to find.

The output ports are another way. You will need to parse them and this way is a bit more difficult. The parser for the output ports can be on any networked computer while the json parser will need to run directly on the raspberry pi.

2 Likes
4

Dump1090 MySQL Database Script with Alert and Filter

GitHub - TomMuc1/Dump1090-MySQL-Alert-Filter: a simple php script that makes use of Dump1090-mutability aircraft.json and filters/writes to MySQL

2 Likes
5

@Spacer
The two threads created by @TomMuc (see his post above) will greatly heip you in achieving your target.

6

Thanks for all of the replies - I have some reading to do about the SQL scripts. One thought - the skyview is already calculating and displaying the data I want - no. of aircraft with positions. Would it be possible to querry the skyview to get the data ?

David.baker - thanks for the directory listings. I was being slow and forgot I was in the home directory when I ssh’d in. All I had to do was jump up a couple of levels and the familiar pi directory structure was there.

7 
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat /var/run/dump1090-fa/aircraft.json
{ "now" : 1529421688.9,
  "messages" : 12207076,
  "aircraft" : [
    {"hex":"ac8215","altitude":20100,"mlat":[],"tisb":[],"messages":4,"seen":1.6,"rssi":-28.4},
    {"hex":"a2be96","altitude":35475,"mlat":[],"tisb":[],"messages":12,"seen":2.4,"rssi":-26.9},
    {"hex":"ad9edf","altitude":32000,"mlat":[],"tisb":[],"messages":13,"seen":13.1,"rssi":-27.0},
    {"hex":"ab77d5","altitude":37000,"mlat":[],"tisb":[],"messages":5,"seen":15.8,"rssi":-29.4},
    {"hex":"c03b0b","lat":41.156321,"lon":-78.266976,"nucp":0,"seen_pos":4.7,"altitude":30000,"vert_rate":64,"track":350,"speed":422,"mlat":["lat","lon","track","speed","vert_rate"],"tisb":[],"messages":66,"seen":0.2,"rssi":-26.0},

......
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pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat /var/run/dump1090-fa/stats.json
{
"latest":{"start":1529421840.2,"end":1529421840.2,"local":{"samples_processed":0,"samples_dropped":0,"modeac":0,"modes":0,"bad":0,"unknown_icao":0,"accepted":[0],"strong_signals":0},"remote":{"modeac":0,"modes":0,"bad":0,"unknown_icao":0,"accepted":[0]},"cpr":{"surface":0,"airborne":0,"global_ok":0,"global_bad":0,"global_range":0,"global_speed":0,"global_skipped":0,"local_ok":0,"local_aircraft_relative":0,"local_receiver_relative":0,"local_skipped":0,"local_range":0,"local_speed":0,"filtered":0},"altitude_suppressed":0,"cpu":{"demod":0,"reader":0,"background":0},"tracks":{"all":0,"single_message":0},"messages":0},
"last1min":{"start":1529421780.2,"end":1529421840.2,"local":{"samples_processed":144048128,"samples_dropped":0,"modeac":0,"modes":892462,"bad":552894,"unknown_icao":330136,"accepted":[9432],"signal":-11.9,"noise":-30.1,"peak_signal":-1.2,"strong_signals":476},"remote":{"modeac":0,"modes":534,"bad":0,"unknown_icao":0,"accepted":[534]},"cpr":{"surface":0,"airborne":970,"global_ok":882,"global_bad":0,"global_range":0,"global_speed":0,"global_skipped":2,"local_ok":71,"local_aircraft_relative":0,"local_receiver_relative":0,"local_skipped":17,"local_range":0,"local_speed":1,"filtered":0},"altitude_suppressed":0,"cpu":{"demod":11391,"reader":5052,"background":860},"tracks":{"all":6,"single_message":0},"messages":9966},
"last5min":{"start":1529421540.2,"end":1529421840.2,"local":{"samples_processed":719978496,"samples_dropped":0,"modeac":0,"modes":4427481,"bad":2735665,"unknown_icao":1636618,"accepted":[55198],"signal":-10.5,"noise":-29.1,"peak_signal":-0.8,"strong_signals":3347},"remote":{"modeac":0,"modes":2583,"bad":0,"unknown_icao":0,"accepted":[2583]},"cpr":{"surface":63,"airborne":5528,"global_ok":5256,"global_bad":0,"global_range":0,"global_speed":0,"global_skipped":6,"local_ok":252,"local_aircraft_relative":0,"local_receiver_relative":0,"local_skipped":83,"local_range":0,"local_speed":2,"filtered":0},"altitude_suppressed":0,"cpu":{"demod":56109,"reader":25377,"background":4199},"tracks":{"all":31,"single_message":0},"messages":57781},
"last15min":{"start":1529420940.2,"end":1529421840.2,"local":{"samples_processed":2160066560,"samples_dropped":0,"modeac":0,"modes":13382700,"bad":8269698,"unknown_icao":4932468,"accepted":[180534],"signal":-11.0,"noise":-29.1,"peak_signal":-0.6,"strong_signals":8785},"remote":{"modeac":0,"modes":6807,"bad":0,"unknown_icao":0,"accepted":[6807]},"cpr":{"surface":64,"airborne":20011,"global_ok":18971,"global_bad":2,"global_range":2,"global_speed":0,"global_skipped":14,"local_ok":833,"local_aircraft_relative":0,"local_receiver_relative":0,"local_skipped":269,"local_range":0,"local_speed":4,"filtered":0},"altitude_suppressed":0,"cpu":{"demod":171233,"reader":76609,"background":12557},"tracks":{"all":86,"single_message":5},"messages":187341},
"total":{"start":1529336640.1,"end":1529421840.2,"local":{"samples_processed":204453969920,"samples_dropped":0,"modeac":0,"modes":1279207996,"bad":788259614,"unknown_icao":479108158,"accepted":[11840224],"signal":-10.2,"noise":-30.1,"peak_signal":-0.6,"strong_signals":620251},"remote":{"modeac":0,"modes":394473,"bad":0,"unknown_icao":0,"accepted":[394473]},"cpr":{"surface":333,"airborne":1227665,"global_ok":1154388,"global_bad":343,"global_range":148,"global_speed":4,"global_skipped":1057,"local_ok":52705,"local_aircraft_relative":0,"local_receiver_relative":0,"local_skipped":20562,"local_range":6,"local_speed":214,"filtered":0},"altitude_suppressed":0,"cpu":{"demod":15820956,"reader":7149473,"background":1088648},"tracks":{"all":6767,"single_message":646},"messages":12234697}
.......
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8

Skyview reads the aircraft.json file every second to displays it on the map. You can make a python program to read the JSON file every second and count the number of aircrafts in the JSON. This is actually fairly easy to do in a few lines of code.

Lots of examples online on how to open and read a JSON file.

command to output aircraft.json to console
cat /var/run/dump1090-fa/aircraft.json

If you want full SQL search then Tom’s solution will work. MySQL is kind of overkill for your application but good if you need the data for something else. This solution connects to the data feed from dump1090 and stores it in a SQL database. You can then query the database for your information.

You need to know SQL and how to connect to the database and runs queries on it.
Also fairly easy to do but requires a lot of resources to run the database.

Read the data directly from the 30003 output. You can just count the number of unique aircraft in the feed.
Need to know how to open a local port for reading streaming data.

command to open port and stream data to console.
“nc localhost 30003”

9

if you are just looking for some aggregated data you could also use the second simpler script that works optionally without database:
Daily Log/E-Mail Aircraft Report directly on your RaspberryPi
GitHub - TomMuc1/Dump1090-Daily-Aircraft-Report: short script that reports daily aircrafts from dump1090

2 Likes
10

@Spacer –

I’m curious if you got your data viz (with LEDs) project up and running. I was thinking of doing something similar and welcome any insights you had…

Thanks!!

11

Did you ever get your data to trigger LEDs? I’m looking to do the same but trigger a relay to close an HVAC damper when aircraft are in the area. Let me know how your project came out when you have time.
-Derrick Perrin