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Multi-Aircraft and Payload Control

Horizon UIHorizon

Payload Control

A new Advanced Settings modal on the Connected Device screen adds payload control — switch payloads on and off from a mission plan (e.g. on arrival at a waypoint) or by hand. This feature can control the LOS radio, BLOS satellite link, or also external payload connected to Horizon’s GPIO.

MAVLink Equipment Control:

  • Map each component — BLOS, LOS Radio, and IO Payload — to a MAVLink Output Index (1–64), then Configure Aircraft to write the mapping to the unit. Off by default.
  • Actuate a mapped channel from a mission plan (DO_SET_RELAY, gated on a preceding waypoint) or directly from the ground control application. Requires ArduPilot v4.5.0+ or PX4 v1.14.0+.

Serial Link:

  • You can also set the flight-controller Baud Rate and Hardware Flow Control from the same modal. Because Hardware Flow Control and the IO Payload channel share the same pins, only one can be enabled at a time.

Multi-Aircraft Control

The Horizon GCS software now natively supports multi-aircraft operations, with a revised interface throughout to enable you to monitor and manage the fleet.

Fleet View:

  • Monitor several aircraft at once in the new Fleet View interface; each gets its own UDP Port (default 14550, auto-incrementing per aircraft).
  • Every aircraft is displayed as a card with a live status: Active, Lost Link (no telemetry for 5 minutes), or Waiting for connection.
  • Define a metrics grid you choose with Card Telemetry.
  • Open a card for the aircraft detail view, including Additional MAVLink Telemetry.

Connected Device and Preferences

  • The Connected Device screen configures the USB-attached unit: Radio Settings frequency-hop range, CoT Type, Satellite toggle, and in-app firmware update (with Aircraft/GCS role swap).
  • The STATUS LED on Horizon will flash amber during a firmware update.
  • The GCS connection moved to Preferences. It’s now a fixed local UDP address (127.0.0.1 : 14550) instead of a COM port, manual COM-port selection is no longer required.
  • Preferences will show you whether a GCS app is currently connected