Every drone operation depends on reliable communication between the aircraft, its operator, and sometimes a wider network. Here you can explore control links, telemetry, live video, antennas, frequencies, cellular and satellite connectivity, range, latency, interference, and the choices that determine whether information reaches the right place when it is needed.
Topic
Drone Communications: Control Links, Video, Telemetry and Connectivity
Latest topic news
MultiGP records PrincessJ and Virginia Tech as 2026 collegiate drone-racing champions
MultiGP's 2026 Collegiate Drone Racing Championship event results list Joshua 'PrincessJ' Lizee at the top of the individual standings, while its champions record names Virginia Tech as the university winner. Recent race coverage describes a finish reviewed on video.
Read newsArduPilot AP_Periph reviews off-by-one tunnel serial-port validation
ArduPilot PR 35064 changes a port check that rejected serial IDs only above an array's element count; a value equal to the count could pass and index beyond the final valid entry.
Read newsBetaflight VTX table command proposal closes a frequency-array write boundary
Betaflight PR 15989 describes an optional FACTORY or CUSTOM flag in vtxtable band parsing that leaves the channel index at -1 when writing frequencies. The proposed fix advances the parser correctly.
Read newsPeer-reviewed ESCAPE swarm exploration revisited in new forest-flight reporting
New reporting on 8 November revisits the ESCAPE research from Tongji and partner universities, originally published in December 2025. Its authors tested three LiDAR quadcopters outdoors and four indoors with distributed task allocation; simulations compared the method against Racer and Role.
Read newsSkydio says Controller 2 is reaching customers after its October introduction
Skydio CEO Adam Bry said on 8 November that Controller 2 is shipping. Skydio's documentation calls its October 12 software release General Access and describes a seven-inch display, selectable cellular connectivity and support dependent on compatible X10 or R10 drone software.
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A drone light show is a timing and separation problem before it is a picture
A hundred illuminated aircraft can form a readable shape for an audience while being dangerously close to one another in three-dimensional space. The artwork is the visible part of a drone light show. The less visible work is assigning each aircraft a time-indexed path, ensuring those paths remain separated when position and timing are imperfect, and deciding what the fleet does when an aircraft or communication link goes wrong.
Read articleA clear FPV picture does not prove the control link is healthy
A multirotor can keep sending a perfectly watchable camera image after its receiver has stopped delivering usable stick commands. The opposite failure is possible too: the pilot can retain responsive control while the video stream breaks into blocks, freezes or disappears. The difference matters because pilots often read the picture as an informal health check for the whole aircraft.
Read articleExpressLRS 2.4 GHz, 900 MHz or dual band: which to pick and when Gemini helps
ExpressLRS hardware used to come in two flavours: 2.4 GHz and 900 MHz. Now there are also LR1121 receivers and modules that do both bands, plus Gemini and Gemini Xrossband modes that send every packet twice. The shop page tends to make the most expensive option sound necessary. For most quads it is not.
Read articleA GNSS spoofing warning cannot decide whether an FPV rescue is safe
A receiver can keep reporting a plausible satellite count, position and navigation fix while its coordinates are wrong. That is the failure an FPV pilot fears when GPS Rescue takes over after a radio or video link problem. A receiver's spoofing flag can provide another warning, but its absence cannot certify the coordinates, and its presence does not by itself specify a safe flight-control response.
Read articleA drone's Remote ID signal cannot prove its flight is authorized
A receiver can decode a drone's identifier, position and broadcast status without learning whether that aircraft has permission to fly where it is. That distinction is easy to lose when a single map combines radio detections, planned flights and airspace rules. The symbols may look similar; the evidence behind them is not.
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