The next thing I did in my process was actually set up the API to store all the data from my dataset. I used the dataset that I had been collecting locally using an SDR antenna setup. This data included flight details like aircraft ID, position, altitude, and speed. At first, it was just a CSV-style log stored on my machine, but I wanted to make it usable through a web app, so that my final app with the map can use the data from the API and run it publicly for other people to use the data received from my antenna as well.

The first step was organizing the data. I cleaned it up and structured it into a consistent format using Python. Then, I chose FastAPI as the backend framework because it’s lightweight, easy to use, and supports automatic documentation.

I loaded the dataset into memory (and later into a local database for better performance) and made sure that I used the same variables in later process that were present in the JSON data in the API right now so there would be no confusions.

After testing the API locally with tools like http://localhost:8000/api/flights, I deployed it on my local network.