DRONE AGENT

The onboard computer for any drone.

The Altnautica drone agent is the open-source onboard companion for any drone. Run one install command on a Raspberry Pi, a Jetson, or another ARM64 Linux board and it becomes a full companion computer: MAVLink routing, long-range HD video, cloud fleet connectivity, on-vehicle AI, and a signed plugin system. One agent, every flight controller.

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my-drone.local:8080

The drone agent's home page: flight controller, video, radio link and services on one status screen

ados

▌ ADOS   ados-x · drone                                                             v0.99.108  ·  refreshed 12:00:00 UTC
●● HEALTHY                                                                                                               
paired · local mode                                                                                                     
╭ ▌ Links ───────────────────────────────────────────╮╭ ▌ Autopilot ───────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│Console                                             ││●● FC connected   LOITER   ARMED                                 │
│Setup & dashboard in a browser, on this LAN.        ││██████████████████████████battery 79% █████████████             │
│➜➜ http://ados-x.local:8080/setup  ●●                 ││▆▆▆▆                                                            │
│➜➜ http://192.168.1.5:8080/setup                     ││GPS 3D   sats 14   alt 15.0 m                                   │
│                                                    ││ ▂▅█                                                            │
│Connect to GCS                                      ││                                                                │
│Add this drone to Mission Control - paste one of    ││                                                                │
│these into the Add-a-Node card (LAN pairing).       │╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
│➜➜ http://ados-x.local:8080  ●●                       │╭ ▌ Video ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│➜➜ http://192.168.1.5:8080                           ││●● running                                                       │
│                                                    │╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
│Ground control                                      │╭ ▌ Link ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│Conventional MAVLink over TCP / WebSocket for a     ││cloud    not configured                                         │
│third-party GCS - tcp://…:5760 (QGC / Mission       ││remote   disabled                                               │
│Planner desktop), ws://…:8765/ (browser GCS).       ││hotspot  off                                                    │
│➜➜ ws://ados-x.local:8765/                           │╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
│                                                    │╭ ▌ Services ────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│Video                                               ││●● 2 running   ○○ 0 stopped                                       │
│Live camera in a browser (WHEP viewer).             ││                                                                │
│➜➜ http://ados-x.local:8889/main/  ●●                 ││                                                                │
│➜➜ http://192.168.1.5:8889/main/                     ││                                                                │
│                                                    ││                                                                │
│Mission Control                                     ││                                                                │
│Open Mission Control to fly this drone. Hosted at   ││                                                                │
│command.altnautica.com; a local or self-hosted build││                                                                │
│runs wherever you serve it (e.g.                    ││                                                                │
│http://localhost:4000).                             ││                                                                │
│➜➜ https://command.altnautica.com                    ││                                                                │
│                                                    ││                                                                │
│Direct IP is most reliable. It works from           ││                                                                │
│command.altnautica.com too.                         ││                                                                │
│The .local (mDNS) name needs a desktop app on the   ││                                                                │
│LAN.                                                ││                                                                │
│                                                    ││                                                                │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
[d] driver  [p] pair  [l] logs  [a] actions  [r] refresh  [q] quit                              v0.99.108  ·  up to date

21profiles

Auto-detected boards

Agent profiles

1command

Install and update

GPLv3

License

The agent runs on a Linux board beside the flight controller.

GET STARTED

One command on the companion computer.

SSH into the board, run the installer, and it auto-detects the hardware, installs dependencies, and starts every service. No follow-up steps.

ssh into the companion computer

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/altnautica/ADOSDroneAgent/main/scripts/install.sh | sudo bash

The one-line installer runs on Debian 11 or later and Ubuntu 22.04 or later on ARM64, including Raspberry Pi OS and Armbian images. It verifies the installer binary's checksum and signature before running it. Scales from a 1 GB Raspberry Pi 3 up to a Jetson Orin.

THE OPEN COMPUTE LAYER

Everything above flight, handled.

A flight controller stabilizes the airframe and drives the motors. The Drone Agent handles everything else on the companion computer.

Most smart-drone makers ship a closed vertical stack. That works for a single product line, and it has produced good drones. It also leaves everyone else stitching together video, telemetry, and fleet management by hand.

The Drone Agent is the horizontal layer that sits between the flight controller and your applications. Write signed plugins without forking the core. Get cloud connectivity out of the box. Scale from a 1 GB Raspberry Pi running telemetry to a Jetson Orin running vision and mission autonomy. Same agent, different tiers.

▶One platform: write once, deploy on any ADOS drone
▶Extension ecosystem: third-party extensions without a fork
▶Fleet-ready: every drone reaches the cloud or your own server
▶Tiered scaling: from a Raspberry Pi to a Jetson Orin, same agent
▶Local-first: works fully offline in the field, cloud optional
▶Secure by default: TLS, signed installers, and MAVLink signing

ARCHITECTURE

A layered stack, one install.

The agent implements the six layers between the Linux OS and your ground station. Each layer is a stable seam, so a plugin at L5 never touches the FC link at L4.

L6Control API

REST and WebSocket control surface, telemetry, params, missions

→

L5Extensions

Signed .adosplug install, subprocess sandbox, capability-gated IPC

→

L4Connectivity

MAVLink router, video pipeline, MQTT gateway, WiFi and radio link

→

L3Hardware

Board detection, GPIO, sensor buses, cameras, and cellular modems

L2Security and updates

TLS, signed installers, one-command updates, and fleet enrollment

L1Supervisor

Service orchestration, health monitoring, dependency ordering

Below the agent sits Layer 0, the Linux OS. Above it, Layer 7, your ground station or dashboard, connects over WebSocket, MQTT, REST, and WebRTC.

RUNTIME

Built Rust-first.

A hybrid Rust and Python runtime. The right language runs each layer, in one codebase.

Rust

The runtime and safety-critical path

The process supervisor, the MAVLink router, the video pipeline, the radio stack, the on-device vision host, and the HTTP control surface are Rust. Long-running services that carry flight data are memory-safe and deterministic.

Python

The ecosystem layers

AI and vision inference, the plugin runtime, the setup webapp, and hardware bring-up stay in Python, where the libraries live. Plugin authors write Python and get the full on-vehicle SDK.

CAPABILITIES

What the agent does.

Built modular, shipped as one package. Every capability below works today.

Long-range HD video

Camera auto-discovery over CSI, USB, and IP, hardware encoding, an OSD overlay, and a radio link reaching 20 to 50 km line of sight with a directional ground antenna, or a WebRTC cloud relay.

The agent's video and radio link page with the camera, encoder and link state

MAVLink routing and signing

Route MAVLink from the flight controller over serial or USB to every consumer over WebSocket, TCP, and UDP at once. Sign every v2 frame with a key that never leaves the browser.

The flight controller card: autopilot, firmware, link state and heartbeat

Signed extension system

Add hardware drivers, sensors, and behaviors as signed .adosplug plugins in a subprocess sandbox with capability permissions. No core fork.

Installed plugins on the drone, each with its version, state and granted permissions

Cloud and fleet connectivity

MQTT telemetry to the Altnautica cloud or your own server, and a WebRTC relay for remote video. Every link is optional: the agent runs fully offline.

MeshNet

On-vehicle vision and AI

Run detection and tracking models on the companion NPU or CPU and publish detections on a shared bus that plugins subscribe to.

Vision Engine

One-command setup and updates

The agent detects the board at boot, enables only what the hardware supports, and updates with ados update, which re-runs the installer.

Setup and Status

HARDWARE

Runs on what you already have.

The hardware abstraction layer fingerprints the board at boot and enables only the features the silicon supports. Nineteen board profiles ship today, plus generic ARM64 and x86_64 fallbacks.

Raspberry Pi 3Broadcom BCM2837

Raspberry Pi 4BBroadcom BCM2711

Raspberry Pi 5Broadcom BCM2712

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 WBroadcom BCM2710A1

Raspberry Pi CM3Broadcom BCM2837

Raspberry Pi CM4Broadcom BCM2711

Raspberry Pi CM5Broadcom BCM2712

Radxa CM3Rockchip RK3566

Radxa CM4Rockchip RK3588S2

Radxa Cubie A7ZAllwinner A733

Radxa Cubie A7SAllwinner A733

Radxa Rock 5C LiteRockchip RK3582

Orange Pi 5Rockchip RK3588S

Rockchip RK3576Reference profile

Rockchip RV1126Barmv7l

BeagleY-AITI AM67A

D-Robotics RDK X3Horizon Sunrise X3

Jetson NanoNVIDIA Tegra X1

Jetson Orin NanoNVIDIA Tegra Orin

Generic ARM64Fallback profile

Generic x86_64Fallback profile

FEATURE TIERS

Features scale with the board.

The agent picks a tier from the board profile, or from available RAM on an unknown board. Each tier adds services to the one below. Set agent.tier in the config to override it.

Tier 1: MAVLink proxy. Under 512 MB
Tier 2: Adds REST API, health, mDNS. 512 MB to 2 GB
Tier 3: Adds video, radio link, cloud relay. 2 to 4 GB
Tier 4: Adds vision host, model registry. Over 4 GB

GO DEEPER

Explore the agent.

Setup & StatusLocal setup webapp and on-box status cockpitLearn more API & SDKREST endpoints, WebSocket relay, and the plugin SDKLearn more Relay & ControlReached through a relay, a hop for another drone, and a separate control laneLearn more GimbalAgent-native 3-axis stabilization and vision lockLearn more ExtensionsPython and Rust extensions for hardware, sensors, and on-vehicle behaviorLearn more

ACROSS THE PLATFORM

What the agent connects to.

Vision EngineModel registry, custom model upload, and on-vehicle inferenceLearn more Video & Data LinkHD video rated to 50 km line of sight, diversity receive, WebRTC cloud relayLearn more MeshNetCloud fleet telemetry, MQTT relay, four agent capability tiersLearn more SwarmFleet coordination: the swarm bus and on-board swarm logicLearn more

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What companion computer works with ArduPilot?

A Raspberry Pi, NVIDIA Jetson, or almost any ARM64 Linux board works as an ArduPilot companion computer once you install the Altnautica drone agent. It connects to the flight controller over MAVLink and adds video, long-range links, cloud connectivity, and on-vehicle AI. Nineteen boards have their own profile today, and generic ARM64 and x86_64 fallbacks cover the rest.

What hardware does the drone agent run on?

The drone agent ships profiles for 19 companion boards, plus generic ARM64 and x86_64 fallbacks, from a Raspberry Pi 3, 4, and 5 and Compute Modules to NVIDIA Jetson Nano and Orin Nano, Radxa, Orange Pi, BeagleBoard, and other ARM64 Linux boards. One install command detects the board and configures it.

How do I make an existing drone autonomous?

Add a companion computer running the Altnautica drone agent next to your flight controller, connect them over MAVLink, and control the drone from Mission Control. You keep your existing ArduPilot, PX4, Betaflight, or iNav flight controller and gain autonomy, long-range video, and fleet connectivity in software.

One agent. Any board. Any flight controller.

The source is on GitHub and the one-line installer works today.

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