Cameras

OpenMANET supports Raspberry Pi CSI cameras on its Raspberry Pi 4/CM4, Raspberry Pi 3B, and Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W images. When a compatible camera is connected, the node automatically provides an RTSP stream through MediaMTX. If the node also has a valid position, openmanetd advertises the camera to ATAK with Cursor-on-Target (CoT) messages.

Supported Cameras

The following sensor drivers are included in the Raspberry Pi firmware images:

Camera Sensor Support status
Arducam Camera Module V2-compatible 8 MP camera Sony IMX219 ✅ Tested with OpenMANET
Raspberry Pi Camera Module 1 / NoIR OmniVision OV5647 Driver included
Raspberry Pi Camera Module 2 / NoIR Sony IMX219 Driver included
Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3, including Wide and NoIR variants Sony IMX708 Driver and autofocus support included
Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera Sony IMX477 Driver included

Raspberry Pi identifies Camera Modules 1, 2, and 3 by the OV5647, IMX219, and IMX708 sensors respectively. See the official Raspberry Pi camera documentation for the module variants and specifications.

Third-party CSI modules based on one of the supported sensors may also work if they are compatible with the Raspberry Pi libcamera stack. The automatic OpenMANET camera workflow currently targets CSI/libcamera cameras. Although the firmware includes a generic USB UVC driver, USB cameras are not automatically configured or advertised through MediaMTX, ONVIF, or ATAK.

Connect or disconnect a CSI camera only while the Raspberry Pi is powered off. Attach the camera before boot so the firmware can detect it.

Automatic Startup

The rpi-camera-services startup service checks for a libcamera-compatible sensor by running cam -l.

  • If no camera is detected, MediaMTX and camera-onvif-server remain stopped. This avoids running camera services on nodes that do not have a camera.
  • If a camera is detected, MediaMTX starts automatically.
  • camera-onvif-server starts after the configured ahwlan interface is up and has an IPv4 address.

Confirm that libcamera detects the sensor:

cam -l

A working camera appears under Available cameras, for example:

Available cameras:
1: 'imx219' (/base/soc/i2c0mux/i2c@1/imx219@10)

After attaching a camera and rebooting, you can resynchronize the services manually if needed:

/etc/init.d/rpi-camera-services restart

RTSP Stream

MediaMTX listens for RTSP clients on port 554. OpenMANET uses the IPv4 address assigned to the ahwlan network, normally the br-ahwlan bridge, and publishes the camera at this address:

rtsp://<node-ip>:554/rpicamera

For example, a node whose bridge address is 10.41.16.254 provides:

rtsp://10.41.16.254:554/rpicamera

You can open this URL from an EUD on the OpenMANET network with an RTSP client such as VLC. Check the address and configured RTSP port on the node with:

ip -4 addr show br-ahwlan
uci -q get mediamtx.@mediamtx[0].rtsp_address

The default MediaMTX setting is :554, which listens on port 554 and allows the stream to be reached through the node’s OpenMANET address.

ATAK Sensor CoT

Camera advertisement in ATAK requires all of the following:

  • A camera detected by cam -l
  • GNSS enabled in openmanetd
  • CoT output enabled with gnss.sendAsExternalGNSSSource.sendAsCoT: true
  • A valid position from either the internal GPS receiver or a directly connected ATAK EUD using the external CoT source
  • An IPv4 address on br-ahwlan

When these conditions are met, openmanetd sends a camera video event and a linked Sensor CoT event to the ATAK Situational Awareness multicast group at 239.2.3.1:6969. Updates are rate-limited to once every 30 seconds. The sensor appears in ATAK at the node’s selected position, and its video entry points to the node’s /rpicamera RTSP stream.

If the camera works over RTSP but the selected source has no valid position, the camera CoT is not sent because there is nowhere to place the sensor marker. In internal mode, GPS must report mode: 2 or mode: 3. A node without a receiver can instead select External · EUD (ATAK) via CoT on the Web UI GPS page.

For an internal receiver, verify its position with:

gpspipe -w -n 10 2>/dev/null | grep '"class":"TPV"'

For the external CoT source, confirm the EUD has a local lease. Then verify outgoing camera CoT traffic:

cat /tmp/dhcp.leases
tcpdump -ni br-ahwlan 'udp dst 239.2.3.1 and port 6969'

ATAK must be connected to the OpenMANET network and listening for SA multicast traffic on 239.2.3.1:6969.

Troubleshooting

cam -l shows no available cameras

  • Power down the Raspberry Pi and reseat the CSI ribbon cable.
  • Confirm that the cable orientation is correct at both connectors.
  • Confirm that the camera uses one of the supported sensors listed above.
  • Reboot after connecting the camera.
  • Check camera-related kernel messages with dmesg | grep -iE 'camera|imx|ov5647|unicam'.

Camera is detected but RTSP is unavailable 

ip -4 addr show br-ahwlan
/etc/init.d/rpi-camera-services restart
logread | grep -E 'rpi-camera-services|mediamtx|camera-onvif-server'

MediaMTX will not remain running without a detected camera, and the ONVIF service waits for the ahwlan interface to have an IPv4 address.

RTSP works but no camera appears in ATAK

  • For the internal source, confirm the GPS TPV report has "mode":2 or "mode":3 and includes latitude and longitude.
  • For the external CoT source, confirm the ATAK device is directly connected to the node and appears in /tmp/dhcp.leases.
  • Confirm CoT output is enabled in /etc/openmanetd/config.yml.
  • Wait at least 30 seconds for the next multicast update.
  • Use tcpdump as shown above to confirm packets leave br-ahwlan.
  • Confirm ATAK is receiving multicast traffic from the OpenMANET network.