Articles & Case Studies

Technical insights, case studies and industry perspectives from the Sparrow Global team.

Technical May 2025

Understanding ADS-B: How Aircraft Surveillance Works Without Radar

A technical overview of Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast, covering the 1090 MHz signal structure, decoding pipeline and how Sparrow Global's receiver achieves high sensitivity in challenging RF environments.

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Technical May 2025

Understanding AIS: The Global Maritime Tracking Standard

A technical overview of the Automatic Identification System — covering VHF channels, TDMA protocol, message types, Class A vs B transponders, range characteristics, and integration with maritime domain awareness systems.

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Technical May 2025

ADS-B Receiver Site Selection: Maximising Coverage and Sensitivity

A practical engineering guide to ADS-B ground station siting — radio horizon geometry, antenna height trade-offs, LNA placement, cable loss, and suppression of LTE, FM broadcast and DME interference for maximum range.

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Case Study May 2025

Protecting the Maritime EEZ: A Multi-Layer Surveillance Architecture

How shore-based AIS, coastal surface search radar, satellite AIS and spaceborne SAR can be layered into a fused common operational picture to achieve persistent, wide-area maritime domain awareness across an Exclusive Economic Zone.

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Technical May 2025

Using Mode S and ADS-B to Filter Primary Radar Targets

A technical look at how cooperative Mode S and ADS-B data is fused with primary air defence radar to classify tracks as White, Grey or Black — reducing operator workload and sharpening the non-cooperative residual picture.

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Opinion May 2025

ADS-B for Roads: What if Every Vehicle Broadcast Its Position?

A speculative engineering look at applying cooperative surveillance — the principles behind ADS-B and Mode S — to land transport. The technology case, the challenges, the benefits, and the question society will have to answer.

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