Introduction

This page covers the installation and configuration of the ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) plugin which enables AdvanceGuard® to receive data via your ADS-B receivers. This plugin enables AdvanceGuard® and Sea360® to display the ADS-B targets on the map using the appropriate identifier and classification icon. In addition AdvanceGuard® or Sea360® will correlate incoming ADS-B target updates with the radar targets allowing known targets to be automatically marked as friendly meaning they will not trigger alarms. The ability to control which ADS-B targets are treated as friend or foe is configurable and can be based on the unique Id or the classification.

Contents

Overview

Witness supports integration with many different types of external systems through the use of plugins.

The ADS-B plugin passes information from your existing ADS-B receivers into AdvanceGuard® or Sea360®, such as location information and flight numbers transmitted by aircraft.  AdvanceGuard® then correlates this information with radar tracks to provide accurate classification of detected objects and additional information such as flight numbers of aircraft.

Prerequisites

The ADS-B Plugin relies on using the UDP Protocol to receive messages from a compatible ADS-B receiver.

This is a link to a document which describes the structure for the transmission of ADS-B messages: https://www.eurocontrol.int/publication/cat021-eurocontrol-specification-surveillance-data-exchange-asterix-part-12-category-21.

Configuring the ADS-B Plugin in AdvanceGuard® or Sea360®

The ADS-B Plugin will appear as a node under the Integration Configurations folder within the Configuration Tree. The settings can be viewed and edited by enabling the Config Function, then selecting the plugin in Integration Configurations, within the Configuration Tree. Configuration settings will then be available in the Configuration Panel. 

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ADS-B Plugin Fields

Plugin Enabled: Select to enable the ADS-B Plugin.

Name: The ADS-B Plugin name.

System Id: ID of the system sending the sightings.

Timer Interval (s): The time period for reporting health and cleaning up stale tracks.

Track Expiry (s): This specifies how long a track will be kept alive in AdvanceGuard® whilst it waits for an update. If a Track Detection update is not received during this expiry period then the track will be automatically deleted and purged from the AdvanceGuard® system.

Show All Targets: If enabled, this option will show all targets, otherwise, only ground based targets will be processed.

Send Non Friendly: If enabled, both friendly and non friendly tracks will be processed, otherwise, only friendly tracks will be processed.

Use Detection Areas: If enabled, tracks will only be shown in Detection Areas - see Detection Areas.

UDP Server

UDP Port: The port number used for the UDP communications.

Remote IP Address: The ADS-B server address.

Tag Overrides

Classification overrides have been added to the ADS-B plugin so specific, known vehicles / planes / targets etc can be classified within it.

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Address Type: These are from the CAT-21 specifications:

Non Unique: Non unique address.

ICAO: ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) address, typically, an aeroplane.

Surface Vehicle: Surface vehicle address.

Vehicle: Anonymous address.

Other: Reserved for future use.

Target Address (Hex): A hex string that corresponds with the expected ID of a target.

Tag Override: This provides us with a method of overriding the incoming tracks with our own tags and classifications.
For example, if we had a ground transponder with a target address of #000001 we could tag it with "Bob's car" and force the classification to be a car.

Classification: The Classification Model of the target - see Classification Configs | Classification Models

None

Unclassified

Vehicle

Person

Debris

Aeroplane

Boat

Large Vehicle

Animal

Drone

Helicopter

Any

IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) Overrides

This allows specific classifications and/or an incoming target address to be classed as friendly or not.

Classification: The Classification Model:

Unclassified

Aeroplane

Drone

Large Vehicle

Vehicle

Debris

Helicopter

Is Friend: Select the checkbox if the Classification Model is to be regarded as friendly.

Exceptions

Address Type: 

Non Unique

ICAO

Surface Vehicle

Vehicle

Other

Target Address (Hex): The Hex value of an incoming target to override the default setting for the classification. For example, if all cars are considered friendly, then adding an exception would mean that a target marked as a car, which has the given Address Type and Target Address, would be considered as not friendly.

Related Information