majal-edge

Connects a PX4 or ArduPilot drone to Majal, the UAS traffic management (UTM) platform by ScaleX Innovation. It runs on the drone's companion computer (Raspberry Pi, Jetson, …) or on a ground laptop with a telemetry radio, and sends the vehicle's live MAVLink 2 telemetry to Majal over MQTT with TLS.

Connect a drone

1. In Majal, open Fleet, choose the aircraft and click Connect. You get a one-time code, valid for 15 minutes.
2. On the companion computer, wired to the flight controller (TELEM2 or USB):

pip install majal-edge
sudo majal-edge enroll https://<your-majal-address> ABCD-2345
sudo majal-edge install-service        # start now and on every boot (Linux / systemd)

The aircraft appears on the live map once the autopilot has a position fix.

What it does

• Finds the flight controller: USB flight controllers (Pixhawk, Cube, Holybro, CUAV, …), the companion computer's UART (/dev/serial0, /dev/ttyAMA0, /dev/ttyTHS1) at 921600 / 57600 / 115200 baud, then MAVLink UDP 14540 / 14550. It only listens while probing. majal-edge detect shows what it finds; enroll --autopilot /dev/ttyACM0 skips detection.
• Gets its identity from the server: the code is exchanged over HTTPS for a device id and a broker login that belong to this device only. The device id, not the MAVLink system id, identifies the aircraft, so drones left on system id 1 never collide.
• Sends telemetry: position, altitude, speed, heading, battery, mode and armed state (requested at 4 Hz / 1 Hz to save mobile data).
• Reads the autopilot's parameters on the drone (0.2+): the full list at start and every 10 minutes, and again when one changes, so Majal can show the safety settings (geofence, return-home altitude, battery and link-loss actions), their history, and a pre-flight check.
• Obeys no command unless you allow it on the drone (0.2+). With majal-edge allow-commands land,return_home, it accepts those commands from Majal only when they are signed by the platform for this drone, less than 30 seconds old and never seen before; it then sends the standard MAVLink command to the autopilot and reports whether the autopilot accepted and executed it. Raw MAVLink from the platform is never forwarded. The workspace and the aircraft must also allow commands in Majal, and the remote pilot keeps priority: a mode change on the handset overrides any command.
• Sends flight logs after landing, only if you switch it on (0.4+). With majal-edge upload-logs <folder>, the new .ulg, .bin and .tlog files that land in that folder (a mounted SD card, companion logging, a ground station's folder) are sent to Majal 20 seconds after each disarm, in the background, once each, up to 100 MB. Majal reads them into charts and reviews them (Fleet → the aircraft → Flight logs). Logs hold the flight's positions: your workspace sees them, and Majal deletes them after your plan's history period. majal-edge upload-log <file> sends one file now.
• Shows its logs in Majal, only if you switch it on (0.4+). With majal-edge share-logs on, a person in your workspace can list the logs on the flight controller's SD card (and in the upload folder) and pick one: the agent downloads it over MAVLink and sends it to Majal. Requests are signed by the platform like commands, can never move the drone, and are refused while it is armed.
• Ready-to-fly checks, read only (0.5+, on by default; majal-edge checks off refuses them). When a person in your workspace runs a check from Majal (Fleet → the aircraft → Ready to fly), the agent listens 20 seconds on the ground to the drone's own readings (IMUs, compasses, attitude, barometer, GPS, estimator, vibration, battery, RC, sensor health and the autopilot's pre-arm messages) and sends a summary of about 2 KB. It never arms, moves the drone, changes a parameter or starts a calibration; the only message it sends is ArduPilot's "run your pre-arm checks", plus a few message rates raised for the 20 seconds and given back after. Requests are signed like commands and refused while the drone is armed.
• Sends camera frames, only if you switch it on (0.6+, Majal Basar). With majal-edge camera on <source> (/dev/video0 for a USB / CSI camera, or rtsp://… for a gimbal or IP camera; needs ffmpeg), the agent sends one still every few seconds while the drone is armed, in WebP (default) or JPEG, tagged with where the drone was. Your workspace sets the interval, format, width and quality from Majal, never below the floor you set here (--min). The camera runs in its own process and threads: it never writes to the flight controller, and a camera or network problem never touches telemetry or commands. Frames go over HTTPS with this device's upload key; Majal shows them only to your workspace and deletes them after the period you choose.
• Short velocity moves, only if you name them (0.6+, for Majal's AI pilot). With velocity in allow-commands (all does not include it), a signed command moves the drone at a set speed for at most 5 seconds (OFFBOARD on PX4, GUIDED on ArduPilot; speed clamped on the drone), then it holds by itself.
• Handles weak links: reconnects by itself; while offline, telemetry is dropped rather than queued, because a stale position is worse than a gap.

Security

• Enrollment needs https:// (plain http:// only for local / private test addresses or with --allow-http). Codes are single-use and expire after 15 minutes.
• The broker login can only use this device's own topics (telemetry, parameters, command answers, and the signed commands meant for it). It can be revoked from the Fleet page at any time, which disconnects the device immediately.
• Commands are verified on the drone with the platform's Ed25519 public key received at enrollment (signature, device, 30-second expiry, single use). When the platform rotates its key (0.2.1+), the agent fetches the new public key from the platform over HTTPS, at most once a minute.
• Logs are sent over HTTPS with this device's own upload key, given once at enrollment (0.4+) and kept only as a hash by Majal; revoking the device stops it too. Devices enrolled with an older agent enroll again to get one.
• The configuration file holding the login is readable by its owner only (/etc/majal-edge/config.json as root, otherwise ~/.config/majal-edge/config.json). The systemd service runs as an unprivileged majal-edge user with the dialout group.

Commands

Changes

• 0.6.0 — camera frames to Majal (majal-edge camera on|off|test, Majal Basar: WebP or JPEG, interval, width and quality set from Majal within your floor, signed camera.set / camera.snap, never a flight command); short velocity moves (velocity, opt-in by name, ≤ 5 s then hold).
• 0.5.0 — read-only ready-to-fly checks (majal-edge checks on|off).
• 0.4 — flight logs: upload-logs, upload-log, share-logs; upload key from enrollment.
• 0.3 — compiled wheels for Linux ARM64, x86_64 and 32-bit ARM, and macOS.
• 0.2 — autopilot parameters; commands opt-in on the drone, signed by the platform (0.2.1: key rotation).

Requires Python 3.8+ on Linux (ARM64, x86_64, 32-bit ARM) or macOS (Apple silicon, Python 3.13 and 3.14).

Proprietary software © ScaleX Innovation, distributed as compiled wheels under the end user licence agreement in LICENSE: free to install and use, unmodified, to connect your drones to Majal. Copying, modifying, reverse engineering or redistributing it is not allowed. Support: support@scalexi.ai