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Supported Hardware

The ADOS Drone Agent ships with 17 board profiles. Each profile is a YAML file that tells the agent what SoC it is running on, which buses are available, what video encoders exist, and which features to enable.

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Board profiles

The agent reads /proc/device-tree/model at boot and matches it against the patterns in each profile. If no match is found, it falls back to generic-arm64.
BoardSoCArchitectureDefault TierVideo EncodeNPU
Raspberry Pi CM4BCM2711aarch643H.264No
Raspberry Pi CM5BCM2712aarch644H.264No
Raspberry Pi 4BBCM2711aarch643H.264No
Raspberry Pi 5BCM2712aarch644H.264No
Radxa ROCK 5C LiteRK3582aarch644H.264, H.2656 TOPS
Radxa CM3 (RK3566)RK3566aarch643H.2640.8 TOPS
Radxa CM4 (RK3588S2)RK3588S2aarch644H.264, H.2656 TOPS
Rockchip RK3576RK3576aarch644H.264, H.2656 TOPS
Orange Pi 5RK3588Saarch644H.264, H.2656 TOPS
NVIDIA Jetson NanoTegra X1aarch643H.264, H.2650.5 TFLOPS
NVIDIA Jetson Orin NanoTegra Orinaarch644H.264, H.26540 TOPS
Rockchip RV1126BRV1126Barmv7l2H.264, H.2652 TOPS
Luckfox Pico Pro/Max RV1106RV1106armv7l1H.2640.5 TOPS
Luckfox Pico Zero RV1106G3RV1106G3armv7l1H.2640.5 TOPS
Luckfox Pico RV1103RV1103armv7l1H.264No
Luckfox Lyra RK3506G2RK3506G2armv7l1NoneNo
Generic ARM64Unknownaarch642NoneNo

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Tier system

Tiers control which agent features are enabled based on available system resources. The agent selects a tier automatically from the board profile, but you can override it in config.
The bare minimum. Only the MAVLink proxy runs. No REST API, no video, no cloud connectivity. Suitable for ultra-low-cost boards like the Luckfox Pico where you just need serial MAVLink forwarding.Enabled services: ados-mavlinkBoards: RV1103, RV1106, RV1106G3, RK3506G2
Adds the REST API and basic health monitoring. You can query the agent over HTTP and get telemetry. No video pipeline, no scripting.Enabled services: ados-mavlink, ados-api, ados-health, ados-discoveryBoards: RV1126B, generic-arm64
Adds the full video pipeline, scripting engine, cloud relay, and OTA updates. This is the minimum tier for a useful companion computer on a real drone.Enabled services: All Tier 2 services plus ados-video, ados-wfb, ados-cloud, ados-scripting, ados-peripherals, ados-otaBoards: Raspberry Pi CM4, Raspberry Pi 4B, Jetson Nano, Radxa CM3 (RK3566)
Full autonomy. Everything from Tier 3 plus the vision engine (object detection, tracking, follow-me) and application suites. Requires an NPU or GPU for real-time inference.Enabled services: All Tier 3 services plus vision engine and suite runtimeBoards: Raspberry Pi CM5, Raspberry Pi 5, ROCK 5C Lite, Radxa CM4 (RK3588S2), RK3576, Orange Pi 5, Jetson Orin Nano

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For development and testing

Radxa ROCK 5C Lite (16 GB) This is the primary development board used by the ADOS team. The RK3582 SoC has 6 TOPS of NPU compute (RK3588 model zoo compatible), hardware H.264/H.265 encoding via the VPU, and 16 GB of RAM. The GPU is fused off, but that does not matter for a headless drone. Runs at Tier 4 with all features enabled.
The ROCK 5C Lite uses a 31-pin 0.3mm Radxa-proprietary FPC connector for MIPI CSI, not the standard Raspberry Pi ribbon. Check camera compatibility before purchasing.

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For ground station use

Raspberry Pi 4B (4 GB or 8 GB) The Pi 4B is the recommended ground station board. It has proven WFB-ng RTL8812EU driver support, a 40-pin GPIO header for the OLED display and menu buttons, USB 2.0 ports for WiFi adapters, Gigabit Ethernet, and HDMI output for standalone kiosk mode. The board profile includes ground-station-specific GPIO button mappings.

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For production OEM builds

Rockchip RK3576 (reference design) The RK3576 is a production-oriented SoC with 6 TOPS NPU, H.265 4K60 encode, triple MIPI CSI inputs, native Mini-PCIe for 4G modems, and USB 3.0. A single board profile covers both air-unit and ground-station configurations.

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For budget builds

Rockchip RV1126B A good option for cost-sensitive builds. Hardware ISP, H.264/H.265 encode, and 2 TOPS NPU in a small package. Runs at Tier 2 with MAVLink proxy, REST API, and basic telemetry.

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WiFi adapter for WFB-ng

The video link requires a WiFi adapter that supports monitor mode. The recommended chipset is the RTL8812EU (also labeled RTL8812AU in some listings).
AdapterChipsetTX PowerInterfaceNotes
LB-LINK BL-M8812EU2RTL8812EU29 dBm (800 mW)USB 2.0Recommended. Small form factor (~25g)
The adapter runs in monitor mode on the 5.8 GHz band. It does not use standard WiFi. Instead, it broadcasts raw 802.11 frames using the WFB-ng protocol with forward error correction (FEC). This gives you HD video at ranges of 10-50+ km depending on antennas and line of sight.
The RTL8812EU requires a DKMS kernel driver. The install script handles this automatically on supported boards. If you are building a custom kernel, make sure CONFIG_RTL8812EU is enabled or install the out-of-tree driver.

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Adding a new board

If your board is not in the list, the agent falls back to generic-arm64 (Tier 2). To add full support:
  1. Create a YAML file at src/ados/hal/boards/your-board.yaml
  2. Define name, vendor, soc, arch, model_patterns, default_tier
  3. Add bus definitions (UART paths, I2C paths, USB ports)
  4. Specify video codec support (hw_video_codecs)
  5. List GPIO pins if applicable
  6. Submit a pull request
See the HAL and Tiers page for the full YAML schema and detailed instructions.