MAVLink Edge Adapter — Deployment Guide

The MAVLink Edge Adapter connects PX4 and ArduPilot vehicles to the Zequent platform. It's built on the Python Edge SDK and MAVSDK-Python, exposing the standard EdgeAdapterService gRPC interface and translating incoming platform commands into MAVSDK calls against the vehicle identified by the request's serial number.

Prerequisites

• Access to the Zequent container registry (ghcr.io/zequent)
• A reachable MAVLink endpoint for your vehicle (serial, UDP, or TCP — anything MAVSDK supports)
• Running Zequent platform services: Connector Service, Live Data Service

Implemented Commands

Every other command defaults to "not supported" and is reported as such through GetCapabilities — including PrepareTask/StartTask, which the 2.0 platform never calls. Waypoint routes arrive as the mission.waypoint.execute command, the same way as on the simulator and edge-dji, and the adapter reports their progress with command execution events. See Waypoint Missions for the full picture across adapters.

Environment Variables

All of these except MAVLINK_CONNECTION/MAVLINK_PRECONNECT_SN come from the shared Python Edge SDK's EdgeAdapterConfig.from_env() — this adapter passes no overrides, so these are that class's own real defaults, confirmed in edge_sdk/config.py:

MISSION_AUTONOMY_HOST/PORT are read by the shared SDK config but have no effect here — this adapter doesn't talk to the Mission Autonomy Service directly (see Edge SDK — Mission Autonomy).

The vehicle's MAVLink connection string (e.g. udp://:14540, serial:///dev/ttyUSB0:57600) is resolved per-asset at registration time, not from a single global environment variable — see the adapter's own README for the exact resolution order if you need to override it.

Docker Compose

services:
  edge-mavlink:
    image: ghcr.io/zequent/zqnt-adapter-mavlink:2.0.0
    env_file:
      - .env
    ports:
      - "9001:50051"
    restart: unless-stopped

.env:

GRPC_PORT=50051
CONNECTOR_HOST=connector-service
CONNECTOR_PORT=8010
TELEMETRY_HOST=live-data-service
TELEMETRY_PORT=8003
ADAPTER_SN=mavlink-01
ASSET_TYPE=ASSET_TYPE_AIRCRAFT
ASSET_VENDOR=ASSET_VENDOR_MAVLINK

Kubernetes

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: edge-mavlink
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: edge-mavlink
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: edge-mavlink
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: edge-mavlink
          image: ghcr.io/zequent/zqnt-adapter-mavlink:2.0.0
          ports:
            - containerPort: 50051
          env:
            - name: CONNECTOR_HOST
              value: "connector-service"
            - name: CONNECTOR_PORT
              value: "8010"
            - name: TELEMETRY_HOST
              value: "live-data-service"
            - name: TELEMETRY_PORT
              value: "8003"
            - name: ADAPTER_SN
              value: "mavlink-01"
            - name: ASSET_TYPE
              value: "ASSET_TYPE_AIRCRAFT"
            - name: ASSET_VENDOR
              value: "ASSET_VENDOR_MAVLINK"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: edge-mavlink
spec:
  selector:
    app: edge-mavlink
  ports:
    - port: 50051
      targetPort: 50051

Testing against a simulator

The adapter's own test setup uses headless PX4 SITL over UDP — useful for verifying your deployment before connecting real hardware:

docker run --rm -it --name px4-sim --net=host \
  jonasvautherin/px4-gazebo-headless:1.14.0 <HOST_IP>

Replace <HOST_IP> with the IP address of the host running the adapter — PX4 streams MAVLink telemetry back to that address. The adapter falls back to udp://:14540 when no connection string is registered for the asset, which matches this simulator's default.

Port

The adapter listens on 50051 for incoming gRPC commands from the platform.