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Micro ADS-B transponder

Great background article on what's possible safety-wise if UAVs had transponders:

http://southernhelicam.com/ads-bin-for-uav-pilots-for-3/

Started researching these after discussing a closer-than-I-was-happy-with surprise encounter with a manned helicopter recently (video below where you can see the massive helicopter shadow (very low level flight) zooming by.

My friend is a private pilot and pointed me at ADS-B transponders as a way we UAV pilots could be visible to other aircraft.

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There are still a few issues to resolve with ADS-B in terms of weight, power supply, seeing as well as avoiding, 'clogging up' the displays on manned aircraft, etc. Despite that I think this will be the standard or a very similar system in a few years. Once ICAO make some universal decisions re: sUAS I think the technology will rapidly develop and integrate.

Seems like the vision is well ahead of the technology and current reality. At least this is an industry which is forward thinking while still evolving.
 
The problem right now is most small aircraft, especially those flying slow, don't have any sort of collision avoidance hardware installed. Once ADS-B is finally enforced in a few years then all aircraft will have them. But as mentioned above its going to over crowd the airspace and your UAV will also display on ATC radar.
 
ATC for the most part doesn't currently have the ads-b info active on their screen. It's the controller's preference right now. I really don't believe it would "clog up" their displays as altitude for traffic can be selected and a lot of times is selected to display +\- 3000' I think it would ideal for them to display... It would be a lot better to display than to have a close encounter with each other.. 100' margin is not much (400' vs 500' agl l)


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ATC for the most part doesn't currently have the ads-b info active on their screen. It's the controller's preference right now. I really don't believe it would "clog up" their displays as altitude for traffic can be selected and a lot of times is selected to display +\- 3000' I think it would ideal for them to display... It would be a lot better to display than to have a close encounter with each other.. 100' margin is not much (400' vs 500' agl l)
Flightradar24 would go crazy and be very quickly overloaded.
 
That would be of little concern to me if Flightradar24 would be overloaded if it increased safety! Also, they could make the ads-b ID have a "U" identifier or something and the software could have the ability to filter it out... Have you seen a bird hit an airplane window? Imagine a 7 pound drone!


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