SiFly Drones Now Appear on ADS-B Exchange

Why It Matters

By giving drones the same visibility as manned aircraft, the partnership improves situational awareness and helps regulators approve BVLOS operations more quickly.

Key Takeaways

• SiFly Q12 telemetry now visible on ADS‑B Exchange live map.
• Cloud‑based data feed replaces traditional onboard ADS‑B transponders.
• Enables shared airspace view for pilots, regulators, and public.
• Supports multi‑hour, tens‑of‑miles BVLOS missions in industry sectors.
• Demonstrates using existing aviation platforms for drone integration.

Pulse Analysis

The ability to see unmanned aircraft in the same radar picture as airplanes has long been a missing piece in the United States’ push toward large‑scale drone operations. ADS‑B Exchange, a crowdsourced platform that aggregates Automatic Dependent Surveillance‑Broadcast signals from thousands of aircraft, now displays telemetry from SiFly Aviation’s Q12 model. By publishing the drone’s position, altitude, speed and heading alongside traditional traffic, the service gives pilots, air traffic managers and the public a unified view of who is occupying the sky at any moment.

SiFly achieves this visibility without installing a conventional ADS‑B transponder on the airframe. Instead, the Q12 streams its flight data to a secure cloud endpoint, where it is reformatted into the ADS‑B message structure and injected into the Exchange’s feed. This cloud‑first architecture reduces weight, power and certification hurdles while preserving the fidelity required for real‑time situational awareness. For regulators, the approach demonstrates that existing surveillance infrastructure can be leveraged for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) missions, potentially accelerating rule‑making timelines that have stalled due to safety concerns.

The partnership signals a broader shift toward “one‑sky” traffic management, where crewed and uncrewed vehicles coexist on a single digital map. Industries such as public‑safety response, infrastructure inspection and environmental monitoring stand to gain immediate operational efficiencies, as operators can request BVLOS clearance with a proven track record of shared‑airspace visibility. While not every drone will appear on public feeds tomorrow, the proof‑of‑concept lowers the barrier for future integrations and may prompt other manufacturers to adopt similar cloud‑based ADS‑B solutions, nudging the market toward faster, safer scale‑up.