Frequently Asked QuestionsLink to the section Frequently Asked Questions#

Is UNIVIP an ONVIF profile? No. UNIVIP is an independent working draft designed to interoperate with ONVIF concepts and to be contributable to ONVIF through its process if the project and ONVIF both wish. Nobody can declare a new ONVIF profile unilaterally.

Why not just use MAVLink? MAVLink is an excellent vehicle protocol and UNIVIP reuses its semantics. But a VMS is not a ground control station. It needs discovery, enterprise identity, web-friendly transports, recording semantics, and a strict separation between viewing, camera control and vehicle control. Most enterprise drones from the largest vendors also do not expose MAVLink at all. UNIVIP's gateway mode wraps MAVLink for the drones that do.

Why not just use MISB ST 0601 KLV? UNIVIP does use it, as the in-band metadata option for recordings. ST 0601 does not provide discovery, capability negotiation, events, or a control plane.

Does UNIVIP let a VMS fly a drone? Only under Profile N, which is optional, separately enabled, separately authorized through time-limited control leases, always subordinate to the operator and the manufacturer's vehicle controller, and fully audited. Profiles S and C give a VMS no ability to move the vehicle.

What is the mandatory transport? For version 1: HTTPS REST for configuration and commands, a secure WebSocket session channel for telemetry and events, and H.264 over WebRTC for live video. MQTT 5, SRT and RTSP are defined alternatives. See spec/03-architecture.md and docs/decisions/ADR-0005-serialization-and-transports.md.

Does the drone need to be on the same network as the VMS? No. UNIVIP's session model is device-initiated (outbound from the drone, dock, controller or gateway), which works across NAT and over the internet. On a local network, mDNS discovery is additionally supported.

Who owns UNIVIP? Nobody yet. The text is CC BY 4.0 and the machine-readable artifacts are Apache 2.0. Governance is described in GOVERNANCE.md and will move to a multi-organization steering group.

Is "UNIVIP" a trademark? No search has been done. It is a working name.