Air traffic control radar display published as open source
The Swiss company Skysoft has made software available to display radar data for air traffic controllers. The application, Albatross Display, and its source code was made public earlier this month.
The software is published using the GPLv2 open source licence.
The tool is meant to provide the controller with precise visualization of airspace. The software can receive surveillance data (Eurocontrol's Asterix format) and display aircraft tracks on maps. The application can also zoom in and pan, offers range and bearing of objects.
Albatross Display is written in C++ and meant to run on normal desktop PCs.
"Open source software is known in the IT industry for its better quality, higher reliability, security, interoperability, lower entry cost, and its ability to end predatory vendor lock-in", the company said in a statement.
As Skysoft announced in March, the radar display application is the first of several tools that the Swiss specialist will publish as open source. In its statement it explains that it aims for wider adoption of such applications.
According to the company, its open source development community is very active. More than 150 members have joined since the project was announced, with about half of them becoming involved in the development of the radar display application.
Some of these active members are employees at Eurocontrol, says Claude Levacher, responsible for marketing at Skysoft. The company has assisted Eurocontrol in writing an open source strategy for surveillance products.
OSOR Forge
The development site for the radar display application is also hosted on European Commission's Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR.eu). According to Levacher the decision to use the OSOR development Forge, followed a meeting earlier this year. "We appreciated the fact that OSOR is a project by the European Commission and is offering a very good support to the industry looking for a high level of technical performance and related services, including legal aspects."
Another reason to use the OSOR Forge, says Levacher, is that the European Commission plays an important role in the air traffic control in Europe with its Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) project. "So, we found it appropriate to use the OSOR Forge rather than other organisations."
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