libadsb-reader

What the library talks to

adsb-reader

The source tree includes adsb-reader, a small CLI built on the same public library API. It is useful for hardware tests, piping raw Mode-S into other software and as a working example of how to integrate the library.

# Discover supported receivers currently attached
./adsb-reader --list

# Automatically choose a supported receiver
./adsb-reader --device auto

# Explicit receiver selection
./adsb-reader --device radarbox
./adsb-reader --device sbs1

# Conventional AVR raw output
./adsb-reader --device radarbox --avr

AVR mode emits conventional lines such as:

*8D4D22AC58AF16AB9FF9107EB3D3;

Building on Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config libusb-1.0-0-dev libsqlite3-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev

tar xzf libadsb-reader-0.1.16.tar.gz
cd libadsb-reader-0.1.16
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

After installation, pkg-config can provide compiler and linker flags to applications:

pkg-config --cflags --libs libadsb-reader
pkg-config --modversion libadsb-reader

The expected version for this release is 0.1.16.

Using libadsb-reader in your own program

#include <adsb-reader/adsb_reader.h>

char err[256];
adsb_reader_config_t cfg = {0};
cfg.device = ADSB_DEVICE_AUTO;

adsb_reader_t *r = adsb_reader_open(
    &cfg, err, sizeof(err));
if (!r) {
    /* handle err */
}

adsb_reader_set_raw_callback(r, raw_cb, NULL);
adsb_reader_set_message_callback(r, msg_cb, NULL);

adsb_reader_run(r);
adsb_reader_close(r);

Decoded fields currently exposed

Aircraft, flight and route enrichment

The core receiver and decoder do not require a network connection. Applications may optionally enable the ACARSd Museum resolver/collector with resolve_unknowns or the CLI option --resolve. Resolver data are cached locally in SQLite so USB reception is never blocked by HTTP.

./adsb-reader --device radarbox \
  --resolve \
  --location 46.8300,17.8300

The first resolver use requires a receiver location. It may be numeric coordinates or a text location such as Budapest. The location is persisted in the resolver database.

Default local resolver database:

root:        /var/lib/libadsb-reader/resolver.db
normal user: $XDG_DATA_HOME/libadsb-reader/resolver.db
             or ~/.local/share/libadsb-reader/resolver.db

What changed in this release

• RadarBox asynchronous USB shutdown is hardened: outstanding libusb transfers are cancelled and drained before teardown on every receive-loop exit.
• Persistent contact de-duplication is separated from resolver completeness, allowing missing aircraft or flight data to be resolved later during the same encounter.
• A callsign received after the first contact snapshot can trigger a later flight lookup.
• RadarBox collector snapshots prefer DF17/DF18 Extended Squitter frames when available.
• Version metadata is synchronized across the public header, Makefile, CMake and pkg-config file.

An experimental museum release, not a universal ADS-B stack

The implementation is clean-room/interoperability-oriented code based on observed device communications and independently reconstructed behaviour. No vendor SDK is required. License: GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 or later (LGPL-3.0-or-later).