gomavlib is a library that implements the Mavlink protocol (2.0 and 1.0) in the Go programming language. It can interact with Mavlink-capable devices through a serial port, UDP, TCP or a custom transport, and it can be used to power UGVs, UAVs, ground stations, monitoring systems or routers.
Mavlink is a lightweight and transport-independent protocol that is mostly used to communicate with unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV, drones, quadcopters, multirotors). It is supported by the most popular open-source flight controllers (Ardupilot and PX4).
This library powers the mavp2p router.
Features:
- Decode and encode Mavlink v2.0 and v1.0. Supports checksums, empty-byte truncation (v2.0), signatures (v2.0), message extensions (v2.0).
- Dialects are optional, the library can work with standard dialects (ready-to-use standard dialects are provided in directory
dialects/), custom dialects or no dialects at all. In case of custom dialects, a dialect generator is available in order to convert XML definitions into their Go representation. - Create nodes able to communicate with multiple endpoints in parallel and with multiple transports:
- serial
- UDP (server, client or broadcast mode)
- TCP (server or client mode)
- custom reader/writer
- Emit heartbeats automatically
- Send automatic stream requests to Ardupilot devices (disabled by default)
- Support both domain names and IPs
- Examples provided for every feature, comprehensive test suite, continuous integration
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Install Go ≥ 1.20.
-
Create an empty folder, open a terminal in it and initialize the Go modules system:
go mod init main -
Download one of the example files and place it in the folder:
- endpoint-serial
- endpoint-udp-server
- endpoint-udp-client
- endpoint-udp-broadcast
- endpoint-tcp-server
- endpoint-tcp-client
- endpoint-custom
- message-read
- message-write
- signature
- dialect-no
- dialect-custom
- events
- router
- router-edit
- serial-to-json
- stream-requests
- readwriter
-
Compile and run
go run name-of-the-go-file.go
Click to open the API Documentation
Standard dialects are provided in the pkg/dialects/ folder, but it's also possible to use custom dialects, that can be converted into Go files by running:
go install github.com/bluenviron/gomavlib/v3/cmd/dialect-import@latest
dialect-import my_dialect.xml
If you want to hack the library and test the results, unit tests can be launched with:
make test
| name | area |
|---|---|
| main website | protocol |
| packet format | protocol |
| common dialect | dialects |
| Golang project layout | project layout |
Related projects
Other Go libraries
Other non-Go libraries