System Overview¶

The ARC system can be used by Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to support tethering above (ie. position holding), or landing onto a stationary or moving landing pad.

An ARC system consists of an ARC Primary device mounted on the UAV and a constellation of ARC Secondary devices located at the target location. The ARC Primary device accurately measures the range and orientation of the ARC Secondary devices and uses this information to calculate a relative position between the airside and groundside units. This can then be used to provide a precision landing or tethering target position to the UAV flight controller.

The ARC Primary device provides this target information via the MAVLink 2 Landing Target Protocol that can be automatically consumed and enacted by MAVLink compatible flight controllers, such as ArduPilot and PX4, enabling autonomous landing or tethering.

Figure 7: ARC-Landing System Overview