OSTK - Nifty OpenSky tools with good vibes

OSTK (OpenSky ToolKit) provides advanced trajectory reconstruction tools for OpenSky Network ADS-B data, through CLI or Python. It offers enhanced trajectory accuracy through improved CPR decoding.It also includes an LLM-powered agent for natural language queries.

Features

• Accurate trajectory reconstruction from raw ADS-B messages with enhanced CPR decoding
• Outlier filtering for cleaner trajectories
• LLM-powered agent for natural language OpenSky queries
• Command-line interface for trajectory queries and configuration management
• Built on pyopensky's Trino interface with caching support

All can be accessed though your terminal console:

# get trajectory rebuild from raw ADS-B messages
ostk trajectory rebuild ...

# get historical trajectory data with various filters
ostk trajectory history ...

# download historical data via natural language
ostk agent console

or python API:

from ostk import rebuild

flight = rebuild(icao24, start, stop)

from ostk import Agent

agent = Agent()
params = agent.parse_query("...")
flight = agent.execute_query(params)

Installation and configure

Install via pip:

pip install ostk

Configure OpenSky credentials (for pyopensky):

# set credentials
ostk pyopensky config set

# show config
ostk pyopensky config show

Quick Start

Rebuild Trajectory

from ostk import rebuild

# Rebuild trajectory from raw ADS-B messages
df = rebuild(
    icao24="485A32",
    start="2025-11-08 12:00:00",
    stop="2025-11-08 15:00:00"
)

Returns a pandas DataFrame with columns: time, icao24, lat, lon, baroaltitude, velocity, heading, vertrate

LLM Agent

from ostk import Agent

# Initialize agent
agent = Agent()

# Parse natural language query
params = agent.parse_query(
    "Download flights from Amsterdam Schiphol to London Heatharow on Nov 8, 2025 between 13:00 and 15:00"
)

# Execute and get results
df = agent.execute_query(params)

Command Line

Rebuild Trajectory

# Rebuild trajectory from raw ADS-B messages
ostk trajectory rebuild --icao24 485A32 --start "2025-11-08 12:00:00" --stop "2025-11-08 15:00:00" -o trajectory_rebuild.csv

Download History Trajectory

# Download historical data with icao24 filter
ostk trajectory history --start "2025-11-08 12:00:00" --stop "2025-11-08 15:00:00" --icao24 485A32 -o trajectory_history.csv

# Download historical data with airport filters
ostk trajectory history --start "2025-11-08 13:00:00" --stop "2025-11-08 15:00:00" --departure-airport EHAM --arrival-airport EGLL -o trajectory_history.csv

LLM Agent

# set OpenAI API key for LLM agent
ostk agent config set-key

# launch OSTK LLM agent 
ostk agent console

Setup LLM Agent

To use the LLM-powered agent, config your OpenAI API key:

ostk agent config set-key

The follow the instruction to input your OpenAI API key. The config file locations are:

• Linux/macOS: ~/.config/ostk/settings.conf
• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\ostk\settings.conf

Documentation

• CLI Reference - Detailed command-line usage
• Python API - Complete API documentation
• Examples - Usage examples and comparisons
• Agent Guide - LLM agent usage

How Does Trajectory Rebuild Work?

The rebuild() function reconstructs trajectories by:

1. Querying raw position and velocity messages from OpenSky's database
2. Pairing odd and even CPR frames for accurate global position decoding
3. Validating positions with reference points to filter outliers
4. Merging position and velocity data with temporal alignment

When to use rebuild() vs pyopensky.trino.history():

Feature	rebuild()	history()
Accuracy	Higher (raw CPR decoding)	Standard (pre-computed)
Outliers	Fewer (with validation)	More common
Speed	Slower (decoding overhead)	Faster (direct query)
Filtering	icao24 + time only	Full filtering support

Use history() for faster queries with complex filtering, however with many outliers. Use rebuild() for maximum accuracy and fewer outliers.

Authors

• Junzi Sun (j.sun-1@tudelft.nl)

Related Projects

• pyopensky - Python interface for OpenSky Network data
• pyModeS - ADS-B and Mode S message decoder

License

MIT License