QGroundControl for Aircast
The Aircast build of QGroundControl is the standard ArduPilot/PX4 ground station with one addition: a built-in WebRTC (WHEP) video source. Point it at your Aircast stream and the camera plays inside the flight view with sub-second latency — the same low-latency path Aircast uses in the browser, now next to your map, telemetry and mission tools.
Download
Latest build: v5.0.9. Each button downloads the file directly. Development builds are Apple Silicon and arm64 Android; stable releases also cover Intel Macs and 32-bit (armv7) Android.
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/QGroundControl.appSet up WebRTC video
Open Application Settings → Video. Under Video Source, choose WebRTC (WHEP) Video Stream, then paste your WHEP endpoint into the WHEP URL field.
The WHEP URL is any WHEP endpoint that serves your camera. The Aircast SFU exposes one per device:
https://sfu.aircast.one/api/v1/whep/<device-id>Any WHEP server works — the SFU, or a MediaMTX instance on the device itself. Plain http(s):// URLs go in directly, no scheme rewriting. The stream must be H.264 (payload 96) or H.265 (payload 97); audio is not negotiated.
Tune for latency
The same Video settings page has two controls that trade latency against resilience:
- Low Latency Mode — shrinks the WebRTC jitter buffer to ~40 ms and renders each frame as it arrives. Best on a direct or low-jitter link (LAN, or a short path to the SFU). Turn it off on a lossy or relayed link, where the ~200 ms buffer gives packet recovery room to keep the picture clean.
- Video decode priority — leave on Default for hardware decoding. On macOS, “Force software decoder” can actually be lower latency for H.265, because the platform hardware decoder buffers extra frames.
- Connection Timeout — how long to wait for the stream before restarting. Keep it at 15 s or more; WebRTC signaling and ICE need a few seconds on a fresh connection.
Two cameras
Configure a second WHEP endpoint under Video Source 2 to run two cameras — for example a wide-angle and a gimbal. The camera button at the top of the flight view switches between them live.
In the air
With the source configured, live video fills the flight view alongside the map, attitude and telemetry — everything in one window over your 4G/LTE link.
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