C++ QuickStart

This quickstart shows you how to build and run a simple MAVSDK C++ example application against a simulated vehicle, and observe the operation using the console and in a ground station.

MAVSDK is essentially a C++ library (or rather multiple library files) that you can include and link in your C++ application.

Install MAVSDK library

Linux

Ubuntu

If you have an older version already installed remove that first:

sudo apt remove mavsdk

The prebuilt C++ library can be downloaded as a .deb from releases, e.g.:

wget https://github.com/mavlink/MAVSDK/releases/download/v1.4.16/libmavsdk-dev_1.4.16_ubuntu20.04_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libmavsdk-dev_1.4.16_ubuntu20.04_amd64.deb

macOS

Install Homebrew and use it to install the library:

brew install mavsdk

Windows

For Windows you can download the mavsdk-windows-x64-release.zip file from MAVSDK releases containing the headers and library and extract it locally (see information how to use a locally installed library).

For more detailed instructions or other platforms check out the installation notes.

Setting up a Simulator

The easiest way to try out MAVSDK is to run one of the MAVSDK examples against a simulated version of the vehicle.

To set up and run the PX4 simulator, you need to either set up the PX4 SITL developer environment.

Or use a pre-built docker container to run PX4 and the simulator:

docker run --rm -it jonasvautherin/px4-gazebo-headless:1.11.0

Install QGroundControl

You can use QGroundControl to connect the simulator and observe vehicle movement and behaviour while the examples are running. QGroundControl will automatically connect to the PX4 simulation as soon as it is started.

See QGroundControl > Download and Install for information about setting up QGroundControl on your platform.

Build and Try Example

The examples are stored as part of the projects source code. Get them using git in a terminal:

git clone https://github.com/mavlink/MAVSDK.git --recursive
cd MAVSDK

The examples can be found in the examples directory:

cd examples

To build the takeoff and land example, you can do:

cd takeoff_and_land/
cmake -Bbuild -H.
cmake --build build -j4

Running an Example

First start PX4 in SITL (Simulation) and QGroundControl as described above.

Then run the example app (from the example/takeoff_land/build directory) as shown:

build/takeoff_and_land udp://:14540

The MAVSDK application should connect to PX4, and you will be able to observe the example running in the SDK terminal, SITL terminal, and/or QGroundControl. The expected behaviour is shown here: Example: Takeoff and Land.

The first argument above is the connection string (udp://:14540). This is the standard PX4 UDP port for connecting to offboard APIs (also see Connecting to Systems).

QuickStart