Drone Detection With DroneAware
With the rapid adoption of drone technology in recent years, you often won’t have to wait long to see one out in the world around you. Because of this rapid adoption, though, compliance strategies have been put in place in many countries. This can include registration and/or pilot licensing and the implementation of a radio frequency-based system for drone detection and identification.
In many Western countries, these measures are now codified into law. For some people, they might be controversial, but from the other perspective, this now means we can expect to receive radio frequency emissions when drones are operating in our local area.
For data nerds, this is great news. Now we have a way to advise, identify and track many drones within our local area. We can set it up in an afternoon for less than $100, and with a little prior planning, we can even take it out into the world.
It’s called DroneAware, and it detects Remote Identification transmissions to tell us when something is flying around in our area.
Let’s check it out.
What Is Remote ID?
An open, unencrypted radio signal containing specific information about a drone, its location, and the location of the operator, Remote ID was intended to help identify drones operating in airspace and lower the risk of airspace conflict.
If you’re an aviation nerd, these Remote ID signals are the rough equivalent of ADS-B for drones, meaning they are able to be detected and if desired, plotted and overlaid onto a map.
It’s worth understanding a little additional context here. While Remote ID is often mandated by specifications and legislation relevant to your geographical area, for the most part, we can primarily expect to see it on consumer drones like DJI and other well-known brands.
So, will it detect anything and everything flying in your local area? No. But it will detect a huge range of consumer drones, meaning that it’s still useful. However, understanding the limitations behind the system will help us make the most out of it.
Signal Analysis
To understand our stream, we ideally want to know what we are looking for. Thanks to the Remote ID protocol being public knowledge, we can get all the information we need thanks to the interwebz. In essence, FAA Remote ID (ASTM F3411) mandates that Remote ID systems consist of two distinct and separate streams.
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE): The drone advertises Remote ID service data as BLE advertisement packets using service UUID 0xFFFA. Each packet contains a 25-byte Open Drone ID (ODID) message encoding the drone's ID, GPS position, altitude, speed, and operator location.
Wi-Fi: The drone broadcasts 802.11 beacon frames carrying vendor-specific Remote ID payloads (OUI FA:0B:BC) and Wi-Fi Neighbour Awareness Networking (NAN) action frames (OUI 50:6F:9A).
Our node will listen to both channels simultaneously, with one caveat. We will need a monitor-mode capable wifi card to ensure we are able to capture the beacon frames.
Hardware
Hardware requirements are pretty simple, and regular publication readers are probably going to have access to a lot of this stuff already.
We’ll need to have access to:
- A Raspberry Pi (power supply, SD card, enclosure)
- Monitor Mode Wifi Card
- Internet Connection
We can hold the external Bluetooth card and use the Pi’s onboard Bluetooth for our initial configuration.
Note: Wifi drivers are chipset-specific. While you don't have to use the reccomended Alfa Wi-Fi card, to avoid headaches, ensure your card has drivers that are already in the offical repo. We used a Mediatek MT7612U
Detection Workflow
Once installed, we can expect two continuous services to run. These will fire automatically at boot, meaning the node will bring itself back up automatically should you lose power.
droneaware-ble: scans for BLE advertisements matching the Remote ID service UUID. When a matching packet is found, the raw 25-byte ODID message is batched and forwarded to the Drone Aware Website over HTTPS.
droneaware-wifi: places your Wi-Fi adapter into monitor mode and hops across 2.4 GHz channels 1–11, scanning for beacon frames and NAN action frames that are carrying Remote ID payloads. Captured frames are forwarded alongside the MAC address and RSSI for signal strength data.
This gives us a detection workflow that looks like this.
Drone RF broadcast
→ USB BT/Wi-Fi adapter (raw capture)
→ ble_feeder / wifi_feeder (batch HTTPS)
→ api.droneaware.io (decode + store)
→ droneaware.io live mapThe system will send a heartbeat every 60 seconds to confirm it is up, and SD card usage is optimised by holding data in the RAM of the Pi.
The only data collected is what the drones themselves are broadcasting publicly. No private networks, communications, or devices are accessed.
The Build
Now that the technical specs are out of the way and we understand how the stack works, we can get on with building it. The install is extremely simple. No custom software images are required. Just a normal version of Raspberry Pi OS and a single cURL command is all we need.
Remember: Installing scripts without knowing what you are calling is asking for trouble. Carry out a quick check first to understand what you are installing.
A quick inspection on GitHub shows us that we can expect the script to do the following steps upon installation.
- Display the Contributor Agreement: You’ll need to type yes to proceed. Review the data ownership and network participation terms first.
- Prompt for a node nickname: A short label to identify this sensor on the map.
- Auto-detect the USB Wi-Fi adapter: The installer finds the external adapter and configures NetworkManager to leave it alone. This gives Drone Aware control over the interface.
- Install dependencies and download binaries: All pretty normal stuff for a new install.
- Generate an enrollment token: We’ll need to log into Drone Aware and paste the token shown. The node activates immediately and is linked to our account via the enrollment token.
This is all pretty straightforward stuff. Let’s make the call.
curl -fsSL https://github.com/fduflyer/DroneAware-Node-Releases/releases/download/v1.0.14/install.sh
Verification
A successful install will be verified in the terminal with the following message.
Node ID : XXXX Your node is enrolled and active on the DroneAware network. View it at: https://droneaware.io/nodes
We’ll then want to validate it online. We can do this by following the instructions and ensuring that we can see our node on the network.
Then it’s worth configuring the node to ensure that we are set up to receive email alerts. This will tell us automatically when aircraft are in the area.
Finally, we can do a final reboot to ensure that everything starts correctly and that nothing hangs on first boot. Once this is complete, we’ll give it a test to ensure that the detection workflow is working correctly. Use the following command.
sudo droneaware test
This switches your adapter into test mode, where it will carry out frame injection. If everything is working correctly, you should see your node displayed on the map where it is reporting the test frames.
Now, your node should be ready to take into the outside world.
Detection Range.
To make the most of the system and obtain the best detection range possible, we’ll need to consider both positioning and hardware selection.
While the onboard Bluetooth for the Pi will work, it’s not optimised for range, meaning that we will expect a significantly reduced detection range until we decide to do something about it.
The best bang for your buck upgrade on both parts of the detection pipeline is to simply use an adapter that is capable of accepting an external antenna and then get the system as high as we possibly can to keep it out of the way of obstructions.
The node for today's article is running in test mode at the moment. Bigger antennas are coming, and figuring out the improvements in range is one of the next tasks on the list.
For the moment, expect a few hundred metres of range in a suburban area with standard antennas. Wi-Fi detection is going to give you the best range-dependent signals.
Note: Remote ID activity will be directly dependent on drone activity in your area. If you live somewhere reasonably quiet, don’t be surprised if it takes a little time to log your first detection.
It’s All About Compromise
Remote ID is, but a single way to identify a drone, and with this considered, it’s worth being frank about the limitations of a quick and dirty detection system like this one.
The system only detects drones actively broadcasting Remote ID, meaning that non-compliant hardware, modified firmware, or purpose-built RF-silent platforms (fibre optic) produce no signal whatsoever. FPV drones, in particular, will usually lack the Remote ID system that the whole DroneAware node operates on.
The smaller wavelength of 2.4GHz also means that in urban areas, detection range can be sporadic and will most certainly be influenced by things like buildings, obstacles and terrain.
With these things considered, for most people, the system is still probably going to be useful.
For monitoring compliant commercial operations, delivery drones, and identifying recreational fliers, it provides genuine passive visibility at a cost that no commercial C-UAS solution comes close to matching.
For detecting adversarial platforms, the software is going to be a big no-no. But for maintaining awareness of the airspace around you cheaply and easily, for most people, it’s going to be a yes.
Keeping it real and treating it as a low-cost passive sensor for the compliant airspace picture and not a security tool means it’s going to be hard to be disappointed.
Investigator515 explores the RF spectrum, cybersecurity, and the hidden tech behind modern espionage.
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