ADS-B Exchange is a global platform that aggregates and displays real-time aircraft movements via a collaborative network of contributors, offering a transparent view of the skies without censorship or filtering.
What Is the Exchange?
ADS-B Exchange was founded in 2016 by a passionate aviation enthusiast and IT professional as a hobby project—and has since grown into a worldwide community committed to providing the most complete and transparent global flight tracking data available.
Unlike many other flight tracking services, ADS-B Exchange focuses on answering the simple question: “What’s up there?” It strives to show aircraft movement without filtering out specific flights or aircraft types, giving users full visibility into both civil and military aviation traffic.
At the heart of the platform is a crowdsourced network of ground stations: individuals and organizations host ADS-B receivers that capture broadcast data directly from aircraft. These receivers collect aircraft position, altitude, velocity, and other flight parameters and send the information to ADS-B Exchange’s systems for aggregation and presentation on a global map.
Over time, the project has evolved beyond a hobby and now serves enthusiasts, researchers, journalists, and professionals around the world. Despite growth and partnerships that have expanded its reach, ADS-B Exchange remains dedicated to openness and transparency in aviation data.
How ADS-B Exchange Works
At its technical core, ADS-B Exchange is built on Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) — a global aviation technology in which aircraft periodically broadcast essential flight information like position, altitude, and velocity via radio signals.
Ground-based receivers — owned by enthusiasts, institutions, and partner organizations — pick up these broadcasts and relay them into the ADS-B Exchange network. These signals are then aggregated to build a near-real-time picture of air traffic anywhere on the globe.
Because ADS-B relies on the aircraft’s own navigation systems (GPS) rather than active radar interrogation, the data can be very accurate and rich, and reception is entirely passive. This allows a global mosaic of flight data to be assembled from thousands of contributors’ receivers.
In addition to raw ADS-B data, ADS-B Exchange incorporates Multilateration (MLAT) and Mode S parameters where available — using timing information from multiple receivers to calculate positions for aircraft that do not broadcast GPS position data.
This community-powered data is then used to:
- display flights on an interactive global map
- support analytical tools and APIs
- enable research, journalism, and transparency
- assist emergency response and aviation safety efforts — sometimes in areas beyond traditional radar coverage
