OpenSky Network
From AltData.wiki, The Alternative Data Encyclopedia
OpenSky Network is a non-profit association based in Switzerland that provides open access to real-world air traffic control data. It operates a community-owned network of sensors connected to the internet by volunteers, industrial supporters, and academic and governmental organizations, collecting ADS-B, Mode S, ADS-C, FLARM, and VHF voice data from aircraft.[1][2][4].
All collected raw data is archived in a large historical database that is primarily used by researchers to analyze and improve air traffic control technologies and processes. The network started in 2012 as a research project between armasuisse (Switzerland), the University of Kaiserslautern (Germany), and the University of Oxford (UK), and the independent OpenSky Network association was founded in 2015.[2]
What It Does
The OpenSky Network collects air traffic surveillance messages transmitted by aircraft over the publicly accessible 1090 MHz radio frequency channel. The main technologies behind it are Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and Mode S, supplemented since late 2018 by FLARM; the platform also advertises support for ADS-C and VHF voice data.[1][3]
Thousands of flights are tracked at any given time through a live public flight map, while the full raw message stream is continuously archived for historical analysis rather than discarded, which distinguishes OpenSky from many commercial flight trackers.[2][3]
Data And Methodology
Data comes from a crowdsourced sensor network comparable in architecture to Flightradar24 or FlightAware: receivers operated by volunteers, companies, and institutions feed observations into a central archive. According to Wikipedia, the network comprised around 2,000 receivers, mostly concentrated in Europe and the United States, and its historical database contained over 23 trillion air traffic control messages as of November 2020.[3]
Academic comparisons have found that OpenSky's coverage has historically lagged the largest commercial trackers, while separate research found its data quality to be superior on some measures.[3] The organization maintains a publications page and hosts an annual OpenSky Symposium, which has published academic proceedings since its seventh edition in 2019; Wikipedia counts more than 350 academic publications using OpenSky data by November 2022.
Products
Access paths documented on the project website include a live API for current airspace states, a Trino SQL interface to the Historical Database (the previous Impala shell was deprecated as of June 2024), curated scientific datasets, an aircraft database, alerts, top lists, and data tools such as open-source decoding software.[1][3]
Users can also contribute to the network by feeding data with low-cost hardware, including ADS-B receivers based on Raspberry Pi, Radarcape devices, FLARM receivers, or VHF voice setups.[1]
Delivery And Pricing
Data access is free for research conducted at academic and governmental institutions. Commercial licenses are also available, and the association sells branded software-defined receiver kits to supporters.[3] Terms of use published on the site govern attribution and acceptable use.[1]
Buyers And Use Cases
Primary users are academic researchers in aviation, security, and machine learning, along with government bodies studying airspace usage. In the alternative data market, flight-tracking signals similar to those OpenSky archives are used to monitor economic activity such as airport throughput and supply chain flows; OpenSky occupies the open, research-oriented end of that spectrum, with commercial flight-data vendors serving paying clients who need guaranteed coverage and latency.[3]