Ground control station for MAVLink aircraft and DJI airframes (Mobile SDK v5 via companion Android bridge). Desktop client is Python / PySide6.
Supports multi-vehicle control over concurrent MAVLink links, live video with optional onboard object detection, gimbal slew from track error, map and 3D (Cesium) views, waypoint missions, and optional station-to-station telemetry sync.
| Multi-vehicle simulation | Simulation controls |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Detection / tracking settings | Vehicle parameters |
|---|---|
 |
 |
- Concurrent MAVLink connections (UDP / serial) with per-system-id discovery
- Mode, arm state, attitude, position, battery, and HUD overlays
- Waypoint upload and mission start; per-waypoint altitude and speed
- Camera ground footprint projection on the map and Cesium globe
- Offline map tiles (Esri World Imagery; optional regional pre-download)
- UDP / USB capture via GStreamer; RTMP-to-UDP path for DJI downlinks
- YOLO-based detection overlays with configurable confidence and class filters
- Track modes (nearest detection, pixel seed, center slew) driving
MAV_CMD_DO_MOUNT_CONTROL - Detection-to-display timing offset (~50 ms) to reduce overlay lag
Requires the TrueGCS-DJI Android companion app:
- Bridges DJI telemetry into MAVLink for the desktop GCS
- Maps mount-control commands to DJI gimbal rate / angle APIs
- Attitude and GNSS reported at up to 10 Hz over the bridge
- Built-in VTOL and multirotor SITL-style sims for bench testing
- Multi-instance launch from the UI
- GPS denial and VTOL transition scenarios for failsafe / mode checks
Under Config → Peer GCS Sync (off by default):
- Two (or more) TrueGCS instances share a Socket.IO relay (
GCSManager) - Independent transmit / receive of telemetry; optional video share
- Remote command / mission ingest disabled unless explicitly enabled
- Optional shared secret; relay defaults to
127.0.0.1:3001
graph TD
subgraph Operators
PeerRelay["Peer sync relay / GCSManager"]
end
subgraph TrueGCS
Main[main.py]
Tel[Telemetry thread]
Vid[Video thread]
Peer[Peer sync client]
Main --> Tel
Main --> Vid
Main --> Peer
Vid --> Det[Object detection]
Vid --> Gimbal[Mount tracker]
end
subgraph Links
ELRS["RC / ExpressLRS"]
end
subgraph TrueGCS_DJI["TrueGCS-DJI Android"]
Bridge[Streaming / MAVLink bridge]
SDK[DJI Mobile SDK v5]
end
subgraph Airframes
DJI[DJI aircraft]
Quad[Multirotor]
VTOL[VTOL]
end
Peer <-->|Socket.IO| PeerRelay
Tel <-->|MAVLink UDP| Bridge
Tel <-->|MAVLink UDP / serial| ELRS
ELRS --> Quad
ELRS --> VTOL
Gimbal -->|DO_MOUNT_CONTROL| Bridge
Bridge <--> SDK
SDK <--> DJI
TrueGCS/
├── main.py # Application entry and signal routing
├── core/ # Config, peer sync, geolocation, model crypto helpers
├── telemetry/ # MAVLink I/O thread
├── video/ # Capture and inference pipeline
├── gimbal/ # Mount track controller
├── GCSManager/ # Optional peer-sync relay (Node.js)
├── ui/ # PySide6 UI
├── simulation/ # VTOL / multirotor sims
└── models/ # Detector weights (.tsm / .tflite)
Release builds may Cython-compile selected core/ and telemetry/ modules. Detector weights can be stored encrypted (.tsm); set TRUEGCS_SHIELD_PASSPHRASE when using shielded models. Cesium Ion token: UI dialog or CESIUM_ION_TOKEN.
Typical low-latency flags used on the relay / demux path:
- Probe / analyze:
-probesize 32 -analyzeduration 0 - Demux / decode:
-fflags nobuffer -flags low_delay
Map view falls back to a local tile cache when the network is unavailable.
| Dependency | Version |
|---|---|
| Python | ≥ 3.10 |
| PySide6 | ≥ 6.5.0 |
| pymavlink | ≥ 2.4.40 |
| opencv-python | ≥ 4.8.0 |
| ultralytics | ≥ 8.0.0 |
| Cython | ≥ 3.0.0 |
| cryptography | ≥ 41.0.0 |
See requirements.txt for the full list. Peer sync relay needs Node.js (GCSManager/).
Copyright (c) 2025 True2456. All rights reserved.
Personal, non-commercial, and evaluation use only. Commercial use, redistribution, or reverse engineering without written permission is prohibited.
See LICENSE for full terms.