Operational testing of a drone ship "Wave Glider" that receives radio waves from the airplane at the offshore to inform real-time location information is ongoing

Display the position of the aircraft flying over the sky in real timeFlightradar 24A drone ship that expands the coverage area of ​​"Wave GliderThe test operation of "We are proceeding smoothly. This drone ship has a mechanism to receive unmanned navigation on the ocean using only solar cells and wave power, and to receive radio waves "ADS - B" sent from an airplane.

Setting Sail for Global Coverage - Flightradar 24 ADS - B Receivers On - board a Surface Ocean Robot - Flightradar 24 Blog
https://blog.flightradar24.com/blog/setting-sail-for-global-coverage-flightradar24-ads-b-receivers-on-board-a-surface-ocean-robot/

Wave GliderLiquid RoboticsThe drone ship developed by the company. It has an antenna that transmits and receives radio waves on the upper surface of the hull and a solar panel for power supply, so that control computers and sensors can be mounted in the hull.


Although only the hull like the surfboard can be seen from the sea, Wave Glider's big feature is that it is structured to have a submarine in the sea actually. A submersible connected with a tether of 8 meters in length is equipped with 6 pairs of "fins" and 12 "fins", and it is designed to generate the force to propel the hull by rocking up and down by the power of the waves on the ocean .


The whole picture looks like this. The length of the hull of the sea is 3.05 meters, and the structure that the submarine connected to the tether with the total length of 2.13 meters dives 8 meters below. In addition, the submersible that gains propulsion is also equipped with a screw, it is also possible to sail using electricity made by the solar panel.


The hull has a space for accommodating control equipment and observation equipment, so it can be equipped with equipment for transmitting and receiving radio waves like nature observation and this time's effort.


The way Wave Glider is actually sailing can be seen in the following movie.

The Wave Glider: How it Works - YouTube


Flightrader 24 Liquid Robotics is to use this Wave Glider to make it possible to receive radio waves from aircraft even offshore which was outside the support area in the past. Flightrader 24 who knows if someone who likes airplanes knows that the aircraft receives the radio wave "ADS - B" to inform the location of the aircraft and displays it on the map in near real time. As shown in the image below, the position of the airplane is indicated by a yellow icon, and when you click the icon, the name of the airframe, the carrier you are operating, the registration number of the airframe, the departure / destination, flight information, etc. actually fly It is a service displayed together with the route.

Flightradar 24.com - Live flight tracker!
https://www.flightradar24.com/


Although Flightrader 24 which can obtain a lot of information, there was a blind spot that it is impossible to cover the offshore where reception equipment can not be installed due to the mechanism that it is necessary to receive radio waves (ADS - B) from the aircraft. It is a drone ship using Wave Glider that is developed to fill such blind spots.


Flightrader 24 said that Wave Glider is setting a 200 km offshore Norway area and is testing for 6 to 8 weeks. This sea area seems to be a suitable area for the test operation because there are few vessels sailing on the sea surface.


Actually received the relay signal from Wave Glider successfully, display is also done on the screen of Flightrader 24. The information on the aircraft received by Wave Glider is said to be displayed as indicated by a light blue icon as shown below.