Hardware requirements

The recommended configuration for the main ground control device (laptop) running Skybrush Live (and optionally Skybrush Server) is the following:

Additional ground control devices may be added to the system with the same specifications. In some jurisdictions you might need two separate computers, one for the wifi communication and one for the secondary radio channel; contact your local Civil Aviation Authority for the exact requirements.

Skybrush Live is a GUI that communicates with the drones, RTK base stations and other peripherals through its backend, Skybrush Server. Skybrush Server comes together with Skybrush Live and is deployed either on a separate, dedicated network device or on the local desktop where Skybrush Live is also running. Skybrush Server acts as a translation layer that converts drone-specific messages to a common format that Skybrush Live understands. Due to this modular architecture it is very easy to adapt Skybrush Server and thus Skybrush Live to basically any drone type with certain minimal requirements.

In all cases, once Skybrush Server is configured properly (in which we assist) it works plug-and-play. You attach your communication module (e.g. external wifi antenna or radio transmitter), your RTK base station, your time code source etc., and all these peripherals get autodetected by the system right away.

Any RTK base station that is configured to stream RTCM3 messages regularly on a standard communication channel (serial or USB port, TCP connection, Bluetooth link) should be compatible with Skybrush out of the box. RTK base stations that provide an NTRIP server to connect to are also supported, as well as virtual RTK base stations operated by third parties over the Internet.

We have already tested compatibility with the following RTK correction sources, for which we also implemented an automatic self-survey before transmitting the correction messages, to create an out-of-the-box solution for field corrections:

On the receiver end, the GPS devices on the drones must be able to understand RTCM3 MSM7 correction messages. MSM4 can be used as a fallback if the receiver does not support MSM7.

The wifi router that provides a wireless network between the drones and the ground station is an essential component of your system. It needs to be performant enough to sustain communication between hundreds of devices (depending on the size of your swarm) and its antennae have to be strong enough to reach over larger distances. Densely populated urban areas tend to produce lots of noise on the standard 2.4 GHz wifi channel, therefore a dual-band or even a tri-band router is highly recommended.

With a single router, your router will be the single point of failure of the drone swarm; a malfunctioning router could prevent communication between your GCS and the drones, leaving it up to you to use a secondary radio channel or a remote controller to bring the swarm back home safely. Therefore, we also recommend setting up multiple wifi routers capable of mesh routing, with a wired Ethernet backbone, in order to ensure redundancy in the communication channel, and also possibly to extend the area that the wireless network covers.

To sum it all up, the perfect wifi router should

Most consumer-grade wifi routers do not satisfy all the requirements outlined above as they are designed for the requirements of home networks with only a few connected devices. We therefore recommend the ASUS RT-AC5300 router or other routers with similar specifications and we would love to hear about your experiences with other routers so we can extend the list of recommendations here. If you are satisfied with another router brand, please let us know.

Skybrush Live is compatible with the same SIK radio hardware as Skybrush Sidekick. Please see a full list of supported manufactureres in the Skybrush Sidekick documentation.