MAVSDK

The official MAVSDK client for Swift. This cross-platform gRPC library communicates to MAVLink compatible systems using a plugin architecture.

Installing

Swift Package

Add the following to your Package.swift dependencies:

dependencies: [
     .package(url: "https://github.com/mavlink/mavsdk-swift", from: "1.0.1"),
],

And add each product within each target as needed (MavsdkServer may be optional):

targets: [
    .target(name: "MyTarget",
            dependencies: [
              .product(name: "Mavsdk", package: "Mavsdk"),
              .product(name: "MavsdkServer", package: "Mavsdk")
            ],
    ),
  ]

Start MAVLink connection

The steps below assume that your iOS device has a network connection to the drone, such as WiFi.

By default, the SDK will connect using MAVLink on UDP port 14540 to match the default port of the PX4 SITL (software in the loop simulation) drone.

The backend is currently limited to UDP only, even though the core supports UDP, TCP, and serial.

import MavsdkServer
import Mavsdk

let port = mavsdkServer.run()
let drone = Drone(port: Int32(port))

After that, you can start writing some code as described below.

For advanced users: note that mavsdkServer.run() will run the SDK backend on a background thread on the iOS device. You could use Drone(address:port:scheduler) connect the SDK to another backend IP address and port (such as 192.168.0.42) and running

let drone = Drone(address: "192.168.0.42", port: 50051)

Start writing code

After that, you can start using the SDK, for instance:

_ = drone.action.arm()
     .subscribe(onCompleted: {
          drone.action.takeoff()
     }, onError: { error in
          print(error.localizedDescription)
     })

or

_ = drone.telemetry.position
     .subscribe(onNext: { position in
          print(position)
     }, onError: { error in
          print(error.localizedDescription)
     })

You can learn more about RxSwift, and check out MAVSDK-Swift-Example for more information on using this framework.

Contribute

Before contributing, it's a good idea to file an issue on GitHub to get feedback from the project maintainers.

Build the SDK

MAVSDK functions are mainly generated from files in the /proto submodule (see Sources/Mavsdk/proto). First, you may need to initialize any uninitialized and nested submodules.

git submodule update --init --recursive

Before building the SDK you may need to install the following packages via Homebrew.

brew install protobuf

You will also need to install the following Python libraries for MAVSDK. The first two commands are optional, and the last is required.

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

pip3 install protoc-gen-mavsdk

Then, to generate the source code, run:

bash Sources/Mavsdk/tools/generate_from_protos.bash

NOTE: The following requires Xcode 12 and Swift 5.3.

With your current Xcode project open, you can then locally source Mavsdk to override the remote Swift Package into your project. Open a Finder window, drag-and-drop the Mavsdk directory within the top level of your .xcodeproj, then click File > Swift Packages > Resolve Package Versions to resolve the package dependencies.

NOTE: If you have Xcode 11 and Swift 5.2 or lower and require MavsdkServer, use these additional steps.

Move MavsdkServer.swift from within the Mavsdk package into your main project. Modify Package.swift to remove the following:

.library(name: "MavsdkServer",
   targets: [
      "mavsdk_server"
   ]
)

Next, using Finder, download, unzip and move the binary for the iOS MAVSDK server (mavsdk_server.xcframework) downloaded from MAVSDK Releases into your projects root directory (or where other dependencies may be installed) and update FRAMEWORK_SEARCH_PATHS in the Target Build Settings accordingly to find it.

Generate docs

Note: CI generates docs for the main branch and pushes them to a s3 bucket.

To test the doc generation locally, install jazzy:

sudo gem install jazzy

Then, to generate the docs, run:

bash Sources/Mavsdk/tools/generate_docs.sh