3 Micro air vehicle / autopilot classes. This identifies the individual model. Generic autopilot, full support for everything Reserved for future use. SLUGS autopilot, http://slugsuav.soe.ucsc.edu ArduPilot - Plane/Copter/Rover/Sub/Tracker, http://ardupilot.org OpenPilot, http://openpilot.org Generic autopilot only supporting simple waypoints Generic autopilot supporting waypoints and other simple navigation commands Generic autopilot supporting the full mission command set No valid autopilot, e.g. a GCS or other MAVLink component PPZ UAV - http://nongnu.org/paparazzi UAV Dev Board FlexiPilot PX4 Autopilot - http://px4.io/ SMACCMPilot - http://smaccmpilot.org AutoQuad -- http://autoquad.org Armazila -- http://armazila.com Aerob -- http://aerob.ru ASLUAV autopilot -- http://www.asl.ethz.ch SmartAP Autopilot - http://sky-drones.com AirRails - http://uaventure.com MAVLINK system type. All components in a system should report this type in their HEARTBEAT. Generic micro air vehicle. Fixed wing aircraft. Quadrotor Coaxial helicopter Normal helicopter with tail rotor. Ground installation Operator control unit / ground control station Airship, controlled Free balloon, uncontrolled Rocket Ground rover Surface vessel, boat, ship Submarine Hexarotor Octorotor Tricopter Flapping wing Kite Onboard companion controller Two-rotor VTOL using control surfaces in vertical operation in addition. Tailsitter. Quad-rotor VTOL using a V-shaped quad config in vertical operation. Tailsitter. Tiltrotor VTOL VTOL reserved 2 VTOL reserved 3 VTOL reserved 4 VTOL reserved 5 Gimbal (standalone) ADSB system (standalone) Steerable, nonrigid airfoil Dodecarotor Camera (standalone) Charging station FLARM collision avoidance system (standalone) These flags encode the MAV mode. 0b10000000 MAV safety set to armed. Motors are enabled / running / can start. Ready to fly. Additional note: this flag is to be ignore when sent in the command MAV_CMD_DO_SET_MODE and MAV_CMD_COMPONENT_ARM_DISARM shall be used instead. The flag can still be used to report the armed state. 0b01000000 remote control input is enabled. 0b00100000 hardware in the loop simulation. All motors / actuators are blocked, but internal software is full operational. 0b00010000 system stabilizes electronically its attitude (and optionally position). It needs however further control inputs to move around. 0b00001000 guided mode enabled, system flies waypoints / mission items. 0b00000100 autonomous mode enabled, system finds its own goal positions. Guided flag can be set or not, depends on the actual implementation. 0b00000010 system has a test mode enabled. This flag is intended for temporary system tests and should not be used for stable implementations. 0b00000001 Reserved for future use. These values encode the bit positions of the decode position. These values can be used to read the value of a flag bit by combining the base_mode variable with AND with the flag position value. The result will be either 0 or 1, depending on if the flag is set or not. First bit: 10000000 Second bit: 01000000 Third bit: 00100000 Fourth bit: 00010000 Fifth bit: 00001000 Sixt bit: 00000100 Seventh bit: 00000010 Eighth bit: 00000001 Uninitialized system, state is unknown. System is booting up. System is calibrating and not flight-ready. System is grounded and on standby. It can be launched any time. System is active and might be already airborne. Motors are engaged. System is in a non-normal flight mode. It can however still navigate. System is in a non-normal flight mode. It lost control over parts or over the whole airframe. It is in mayday and going down. System just initialized its power-down sequence, will shut down now. System is terminating itself. Component ids (values) for the different types and instances of onboard hardware/software that might make up a MAVLink system (autopilot, cameras, servos, GPS systems, avoidance systems etc.). Components must use the appropriate ID in their source address when sending messages. Components can also use IDs to determine if they are the intended recipient of an incoming message. The MAV_COMP_ID_ALL value is used to indicate messages that must be processed by all components. When creating new entries, components that can have multiple instances (e.g. cameras, servos etc.) should be allocated sequential values. An appropriate number of values should be left free after these components to allow the number of instances to be expanded. Used to broadcast messages to all components of the receiving system. Components should attempt to process messages with this component ID and forward to components on any other interfaces. System flight controller component ("autopilot"). Only one autopilot is expected in a particular system. Camera #1. Camera #2. Camera #3. Camera #4. Camera #5. Camera #6. Servo #1. Servo #2. Servo #3. Servo #4. Servo #5. Servo #6. Servo #7. Servo #8. Servo #9. Servo #10. Servo #11. Servo #12. Servo #13. Servo #14. Gimbal component. Logging component. Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) component. On Screen Display (OSD) devices for video links. Generic autopilot peripheral component ID. Meant for devices that do not implement the parameter microservice. All gimbals should use MAV_COMP_ID_GIMBAL. Gimbal ID for QX1. FLARM collision alert component. Component that supports the Mission microservice. Component that finds an optimal path between points based on a certain constraint (e.g. minimum snap, shortest path, cost, etc.). Component that plans a collision free path between two points. Component that provides position estimates using VIO techniques. Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) #1. Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) #2. Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) #3. GPS #1. GPS #2. Component to bridge MAVLink to UDP (i.e. from a UART). Component to bridge to UART (i.e. from UDP). System control does not require a separate component ID. Component for handling system messages (e.g. to ARM, takeoff, etc.). The heartbeat message shows that a system or component is present and responding. The type and autopilot fields (along with the message component id), allow the receiving system to treat further messages from this system appropriately (e.g. by laying out the user interface based on the autopilot). Type of the system (quadrotor, helicopter, etc.). Components use the same type as their associated system. Autopilot type / class. System mode bitmap. A bitfield for use for autopilot-specific flags System status flag. MAVLink version, not writable by user, gets added by protocol because of magic data type: uint8_t_mavlink_version