Skybrush Sidekick is a safety fallback option besides Skybrush Live with a secondary communication channel in case issues emerge with the primary channel. Skybrush Sidekick can be executed on completely independent ground hardware and can be used in emergency situations for immediate collective loiter, return to home or land, or as an independent kill switch, both for individuals or groups of drones.
Features #
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Runs independently of Skybrush Live, but optionally connects to Skybrush Server to retrieve additional telemetry info if available.
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Group / subgroup / individual control possibilities within the entire fleet for flight mode selection, return to home, land and disarm.
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Real-time light control on selected drones.
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RTK correction data transmission to drones on its independent communication channel, if Skybrush Server is connected.
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Handy hotkeys for reducing control reaction time in critical situations.
System Requirements #
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Skybrush Sidekick is built on top of Electron, which is in turn built on the Chromium browser engine. Computers that are able to run a recent version of the Chrome web browser should also be able to run Skybrush Sidekick.
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Skybrush Sidekick supports Windows 10 and later, macOS 11 and later (both on Intel and ARM CPUs) and Ubuntu Linux. Other Linux distributions may also work but they are not tested.
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A telemetry radio connection (typically 433 MHz for Europe or 915 MHz for US) is needed to communicate to the drones in an unidirectional way.
Compatible Drone Types #
Skybrush Sidekick controls drones via MAVLink messages as implemented in the ArduCopter firmware, so basically any drone running ArduCopter can be made compatible with Skybrush Sidekick with the proper telemetry module installed. See our FAQ for more details.
Get Skybrush Sidekick #
Skybrush Sidekick is available as part of the Skybrush Live Professional bundle.