Systems & Integration2026Project demoWork in progress

Sky tracker AI

A live view of the aircraft above my home, powered by a small antenna and designed to make local flight activity easy to explore.

GitHub (opens in a new tab)

Platforms: Web · Backend · Hardware
Focus: Live radar · Every pass remembered · Useful alerts

A short tour of the live map, flight history, route replay, comparisons, and alerts.

The story

What I wanted to explore

This began as a for-fun homelab experiment. I wanted to connect a radio antenna and Raspberry Pi to software I built myself, learn how aircraft broadcasts could be received at home, and see how far I could take the idea—from live data to flight history, alerts, and eventually AI-powered questions.

What it delivers

A small home receiver listens for nearby aircraft and sends their position, speed, and altitude to the app. Sky tracker AI turns that information into a live map, remembers each flight for later, and can alert me to important events. The next step is a conversational search that can answer questions such as, ‘What plane flew over my house at lunch yesterday?’

At a glance

Live radar
See nearby aircraft move across the map using signals received directly at my home, rather than data from an outside flight service.
Every pass remembered
Look back at previous flights, replay their routes, and compare the fastest, lowest, or closest aircraft.
Useful alerts
Get immediate updates when an aircraft enters a chosen area or broadcasts an emergency signal.

Built with

Java
Spring Boot
React
TypeScript
Supabase
Raspberry Pi

Reliable from antenna to screen
A Raspberry Pi decodes the radio broadcasts and passes them to the Java service. If the connection drops, it reconnects automatically so tracking can continue without manual intervention.
Detailed without storing too much
The service groups scattered position updates into complete flights and keeps the most useful detail, especially when an aircraft is close to the antenna.