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Integration Guide

MAVLink

Receive telemetry from drones and unmanned vehicles over MAVLink

The MAVLink integration receives telemetry from drones, rovers, boats, and other unmanned vehicles using the MAVLink protocol. Hydris acts as a ground control station (GCS), receiving position, attitude, battery, and navigation state from connected vehicles.

Setup

  1. Open the command menu with Ctrl+K (or ⌘+K) and select Configuration
  2. Find MAVLink under Network in the sidebar
  3. Select Endpoint and click Create
  4. Fill in the settings and click Apply Configuration

The default transport is UDP Server on port 14550 — the standard GCS listen port. Most autopilots and companion computers will broadcast to it out of the box, so the defaults usually work without changes.

Settings

SettingDefaultDescription
Transportudp_serverConnection mode: udp_server, udp_client, tcp_client, tcp_server
Address0.0.0.0:14550Listen or connect address
Entity Expiry Seconds60Seconds without update before vehicle entity expires
Stream RequesttrueRequest telemetry streams from ArduPilot vehicles
Stream Rate Hz4Requested telemetry rate (1–50 Hz)
MAVLink Version2Protocol version for outgoing frames (1 or 2)
Entity PrefixmavlinkPrefix for entity IDs
SIDCMIL-STD-2525C symbol code override

Data Flow

Inbound only. The integration parses MAVLink telemetry packets and creates entities in the Hydris world. No commands are sent to vehicles.

Entity Mapping

Entities are created with the ID format {entity_prefix}.{system_id}.{component_id} (e.g. mavlink.1.1).

MAVLink MessageHydris Component
HEARTBEATsymbol (vehicle type), navigation (armed state, flight mode)
GLOBAL_POSITION_INTgeo (lat, lon, altitude), kinematics (velocity ENU)
ATTITUDEorientation (quaternion), kinematics (angular rates)
SYS_STATUS / BATTERY_STATUSpower (battery %, voltage, time remaining)
VFR_HUDkinematics (groundspeed, heading → ENU velocity)
GPS_RAW_INTgeo (position with HDOP/VDOP covariance)
MISSION_CURRENTnavigation (waypoint progress)

Vehicle Type Symbols

The vehicle type from HEARTBEAT is mapped to a MIL-STD-2525C symbol and label:

MAVLink TypeLabel
Fixed WingFixed Wing
Quadrotor / Hexarotor / OctorotorQuadrotor / Hexarotor / Octorotor
HelicopterHelicopter
Ground RoverRover
BoatBoat
SubmarineSubmarine

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