PixelPilot — APFPV fork

Important

This is the APFPV fork of OpenIPC/PixelPilot. It keeps the stock wfb-ng (wifibroadcast) ground-station and adds a direct air↔phone link ("APFPV") that drives an RTL8812AU USB adapter in station mode from userspace — no kernel MLME, no root. So the app now does both wfb and APFPV modes.

It is the top of a 3-repo stack: WiFiDriver — the first userspace station-mode driver for the RTL8812AU — → devourer (IP / FPV / JNI) → PixelPilot (this app). Build instructions below.

Performance depends heavily on your device's processing power. Use at your own risk.

Building this fork

Needs the Android SDK + NDK 26.1.10909125, build-tools 35, and a JDK 17+. The native wfbngrtl8812 module pulls in the devourer and (nested) WiFiDriver submodules, so clone recursively:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/AlaEddine-Zoghlami/PixelPilot.git
# in an existing clone:  git submodule update --init --recursive

./gradlew :app:assembleDebug                 # debug APK
./gradlew :app:assembleRelease               # signed release APK (needs ./fpv.jks — see app/build.gradle)

The native libWfbngRtl8812.so is built by app/wfbngrtl8812/src/main/cpp/CMakeLists.txt, which compiles the WiFiDriver driver + the devourer IP/FPV layer + the wfb logic + the JNI into one library. Prebuilt APKs: the Releases page.

Introduction

PixelPilot – the Android FPV app that leaves "loading…" screens in the dust.
Plug in, fly live with sub-atomic latency, flex real-time signal stats, and marvel at the open-source unicorn
where (brace yourself) most things actually work.

Built on the work of:

• FPVue_android: basic and unique work to combine all components into a single application by Gee He.
• devourer (APFPV fork): userspace Realtek 11ac driver (rtl8812au + rtl8812eu + rtl8822eu), originally created by buldo, converted to C by josephnef, and based on openipc/devourer. The fork adds the APFPV station-mode stack (WPA2 supplicant, scan/probe, 802.11 framing, DHCP, link-quality feedback).
• LiveVideo10ms: excellent video decoder from Consti10 converted into a module.
• wfb-ng: library allowing the broadcast of the video feed over the air.

The wfb-ng gs.key is embedded in the app. The settings menu allows selecting a different key from your phone.

Supported rtl8812au, rtl8812eu and rtl8822eu wifi adapters are listed here. Feel free to send pull requests to add new supported adapter hardware IDs.

Supports saving a DVR of the video feed to Files/Internal Storage/Movies/.

APFPV integration (what this fork adds)

APFPV gives the phone a direct WPA2 station link to an air unit over an RTL8812AU dongle, alongside (or instead of) the classic wfb-ng broadcast path. The driver work lives in the Devourer fork; the Android glue lives here:

Layer	Location
Native station driver (station mode, WPA2, scan/probe, DHCP, RX deframe)	app/wfbngrtl8812/src/main/cpp/devourer/ (devourer submodule)
JNI bridge + ApfpvStaLink Java API	app/wfbngrtl8812/src/main/cpp/apfpv_jni.cpp, app/wfbngrtl8812/src/main/java/com/openipc/wfbngrtl8812/ApfpvStaLink.java
Link orchestration / mode coordination	app/src/main/java/com/openipc/pixelpilot/ApfpvLinkManager.java
Air-unit control (SSH + REST), presets, camera settings	app/src/main/java/com/openipc/pixelpilot/apfpv/ (AirSshClient, AirCameraSettings, AirPresets, ApfpvWifiManager, GsMenuWfbng, GsSettings, WlxAdapters, ApfpvSettings)

The link can fall back to the standard wfb-ng broadcast pipeline; the two modes are coordinated by ApfpvLinkManager / LinkModeCoordinator.

Compatibility

• arm64-v8a, armeabi-v7a Android devices (including Meta Quest 2/3, non-VR mode)

Build

1. Clone with submodules

This repo uses two git submodules — the devourer fork and wfb-ng:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/AlaEddine-Zoghlami/PixelPilot.git
cd PixelPilot
# or, if you already cloned without --recurse-submodules:
git submodule update --init --recursive

.gitmodules pins app/wfbngrtl8812/src/main/cpp/devourer to the Devourer fork (master) and app/wfbngrtl8812/src/main/cpp/wfb-ng to svpcom/wfb-ng (master).

2. Toolchain

Open in Android Studio (recommended) or build from the CLI. Either way you need:

Component	Version
JDK	17+ (21 works)
Android SDK platform	android-34 (compileSdk = 34)
Build-tools	34.0.0 (Gradle auto-installs 35.0.0)
NDK	26.1.10909125
CMake	3.22.1

Android Studio installs these for you via the SDK Manager. For a headless build, install them with sdkmanager:

sdkmanager "platforms;android-34" "ndk;26.1.10909125" "cmake;3.22.1"

Create local.properties pointing at your SDK. On Windows use forward slashes (a Java .properties file treats \ as an escape, so C:\Android\sdk is parsed incorrectly and breaks NDK discovery):

sdk.dir=C:/Android/sdk

3. Prebuilt native libraries

The native modules link against vendored prebuilt .so/.a files, one set per ABI, all checked into the tree:

• app/wfbngrtl8812/src/main/cpp/libs/<abi>/ → libusb1.0.so, libsodium.so, libpcap.a
• app/videonative/src/main/cpp/libs/<abi>/ → libopus.so

No action needed — they are committed for both arm64-v8a and armeabi-v7a.

4. Assemble

./gradlew :app:assembleDebug        # Linux/macOS
.\gradlew.bat :app:assembleDebug    # Windows

The APK is written to app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk. A debug build is verified working with the toolchain above (devourer + APFPV station stack + wfb-ng all cross-compiled and packaged for both ABIs).

Installation

• Build the APK (above) and install it with adb install app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk.
• Audio feature: PixelPilot can play an Opus stream from majestic on the camera. Enable it camera-side in /etc/majestic.yaml:

audio:
  enabled: true
  volume: 30
  srate: 8000
  codec: opus
  outputEnabled: false
  outputVolume: 30

Quick Reference: Auto-FEC Levels 0 – 5

Level	Denominator	Added Redundancy
0	1.00000	0 %
1	1.11111	≈ 11 %
2	1.25000	25 %
3	1.42000	42 %
4	1.66667	67 %
5	2.00000	100 %

How the denominator is used: The selected denominator multiplies either FEC_k (source-packet count) or FEC_n (total packets after redundancy), increasing the actual amount of forward-error-correction data.

Threshold Fields (packets / second)

Field	Purpose
LostThreshold	If lost_pkts ≥ LostThreshold, jump straight to FEC-5
RecThr1 … RecThr4	Number of recovered packets (rec_pkts) that triggers FEC-1 … FEC-4

Ordering constraint — must hold: RecThr1 < RecThr2 < RecThr3 < RecThr4 < LostThreshold

Decision Logic (executed once per second)

if lost_pkts >= LostThreshold:
    level = 5
elif rec_pkts >= RecThr4:
    level = 4
elif rec_pkts >= RecThr3:
    level = 3
elif rec_pkts >= RecThr2:
    level = 2
elif rec_pkts >= RecThr1:
    level = 1
else:
    level = 0

apply_fec(level)  # multiply the level's denominator by FEC_k or FEC_n

Set thresholds thoughtfully: Lower values → more aggressive protection (higher bandwidth / latency). Higher values → leaner bandwidth, less resilience.

List of potential improvements

• adaptive link [x]
• 40 MHz bandwidth [?] - works but buggy
• support stream over ipv6
• Save audio stream with the video for recordings
• Possibility to forward undecoded wfb stream over the network

Known issues

• Audio stream is not working

Tested devices based on real user reviews

• Samsung Galaxy A54 (Exynos 1380 processor)
• Google Pixel 7 Pro
• Poco X6 Pro
• Meta Quest 2
• Meta Quest 3