Ground control station to UAV connectivity technologies: the role of MAVLINK in modern unmanned systems

Industry White Paper

Ensuring Long-term Confidentiality and Mission Resilience to Prevent HNDL and in Compliance with NIST FIPS 203/204/205 Standards

As unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) evolve toward greater autonomy, interoperability, and multi-vendor ecosystems, the communication protocol between the Ground Control Station (GCS) and the airborne platform becomes a critical system foundation. MAVLink (Micro Air Vehicle Link) has emerged as the de facto standard protocol for command, control, and telemetry exchange in modern unmanned systems.

Rather than binding a GCS to a proprietary flight control interface, MAVLink enables an open, extensible, and transport-agnostic communication layer. This allows operators, system integrators, and platform developers to combine different GCS hardware, RF links, and autopilot stacks without redesigning the entire control architecture.

For mission-critical operations—such as defense, public safety, and industrial inspection—MAVLink plays a key role in ensuring deterministic control behavior, transparent system status, and scalable multi-vehicle operations.

👉 For more details, please refer to: White Paper