Behind the Badge: How We Used Hardware to Make AV Badge
Walks through the hardware engineering behind an Aerospace Village badge featuring an integrated low-cost Linux system and ADS-B receiver.
Summary
Reinventing Aerospace Conference Badges
ADS-B flight tracking traditionally requires a Raspberry Pi paired with dedicated USB software-defined radio receivers. The Aerospace Village badge project set out to design an autonomous, low-cost handheld receiver badge.
Low Cost Linux Hardware Architecture
Engineers integrated an entire system-on-chip running embedded Linux, selecting components that cost less than standard high-end microcontrollers while providing robust processing capability.
Custom Signal Processing Chain
A custom RF front end and demodulation processing pipeline was developed to capture and decode 1090 MHz ADS-B aircraft broadcast signals directly on the badge.
Onboard Mapping and Visualizations
The badge renders real-time aircraft positions and flight telemetry on an onboard display, demonstrating sophisticated embedded RF engineering on an event badge budget.
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