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ADOS Ground Agent

The Ground Agent is a small Linux ground node that receives HD video from your drone and puts it on any screen you want. Your laptop browser, your phone, a monitor with a gamepad, or all three at once. It runs the same ADOS Drone Agent codebase in a different profile. Same install script, same code, same updates. The hardware fingerprint at boot decides whether the SBC acts as a drone companion or a ground station. The box stays compact. Power comes from an external USB-C source such as a wall adapter, a USB-C power bank, or regulated field power.

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What it does

The Ground Agent handles three jobs:

1. Receives the drone video link on the ground node. Your Mac, Windows laptop, phone, or browser does not need to run the radio stack directly.
2. Serves video and telemetry to any connected client. WebRTC for video, WebSocket for telemetry. Your laptop opens a browser, your phone joins the WiFi, or you plug in HDMI and a gamepad.
3. Bridges to the cloud when you want remote observers. Connect the ground node to WiFi, Ethernet, or a 4G modem and telemetry flows to Altnautica cloud automatically.

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How it fits together

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Four ways to connect

Every client talks to the same endpoints on the Ground Agent. The only difference is the physical link. All four can connect at the same time. One takes pilot-in-command (PIC), the rest watch.

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Key numbers

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One codebase, two profiles

You do not install separate software for the ground side. The same curl | bash one-liner that installs the drone agent also installs the ground agent. On first boot, a score-based hardware fingerprint checks what is attached:

• OLED on I2C + GPIO buttons + RTL8812EU + no flight controller = ground station profile
• Flight controller on UART + GPS = drone profile

If the fingerprint is ambiguous, the OLED shows a pick-profile screen. You press a button and you are done.

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Bench hardware

The simplest ground station is a Raspberry Pi 4B, an RTL8812EU USB WiFi adapter, a small OLED, and four buttons. Add an HDMI cable and a gamepad for standalone flight without a laptop. Production boards (Radxa CM3 Lite, Radxa CM4 Pro) are smaller, more rugged, and support features like antenna diversity and internal 4G modems. For field runtime, use an external USB-C power bank. A compact direct node is planned around roughly 7.5 W expected draw. HDMI, dual-radio, or uplink-heavy setups should be planned around roughly 9-11 W. Power and Runtime has the sizing table.

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Three deployment modes

A single Ground Agent runs in direct mode by default and that covers most setups. When the flight area has obstructions, when you want to extend coverage along a long corridor, or when you want a backup receiver in case the primary fails, you can deploy two or three Ground Agents together as a mesh. The roles in a mesh are:

• direct - single-node behavior. The default.
• relay - forwards drone fragments to a receiver elsewhere on the mesh.
• receiver - hub that combines fragments from itself and every paired relay.

Read the Distributed Receive & Mesh overview for when to use mesh and how it works. Three Deployment Roles covers the three options side by side.

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What is next

• Supported Hardware for the full parts list
• Power and Runtime to size an external power source
• Installation to set up your ground station
• WiFi AP to connect your laptop
• Setup and Pairing for the first-time walkthrough
• Mesh & Distributed Receive when you need more than one Ground Agent