FORGE guide
Programs that fly your drone, made from blocks · October 2026
1. What a FORGE program is
A FORGE program tells the drone what to do, step by step: take off, fly a square, follow a marker, land. You make it from blocks in FORGE Studio, without writing code. The program is uploaded to the flight controller like a mission and runs there, without a computer, when the drone is in FORGE mode.
The flight controller stays in charge of safety the whole time: every speed and tilt limit, the geofence and every failsafe still apply, and you can take back control at any moment by switching mode on your radio.
2. How a program is built
- States: a program is a set of states, such as "climb", "fly the square" and "land". In each state the drone does one thing.
- Commands: in a state, blocks say what the drone should do: hold a height, fly to a point, fly a speed, turn, land, or hand control back.
- Changes: blocks say when to go to the next state: after a time, at a height, near a point, when a marker is seen, when a value crosses a limit.
- Values: the drone's height, speed, position, battery, GPS and your own variables, for decisions and for the plots in Analyse.
3. Start from an example
| Example | What it does |
|---|---|
| Empty program | One state that holds its position |
| Hello square | A 20 m square from where it hovers, then lands where it started (School: Your first program: a square) |
| Land on a moving truck | Follows the truck, finds the marker on its deck and lands on it while it drives (School: Land on a moving truck) |
| Fly a loop | One 20 m vertical loop with the smoke on, on the drone as in FORGE Studio (School: Fly a loop) |
4. Check, try, upload
- Checks: Studio checks the program as you build it and lists anything to fix, in plain words.
- Simulate › Save and fly in simulation: runs the program on a simulated drone on this computer, with wind if you like; the result says how it ended. (The first run takes about a minute to prepare.)
- Fly it in a flight controller's simulation too, so the program runs through the flight controller itself: upload it, then on the board choose Fly › Switch to Simulation mode. No board yet? The virtual flight controller (Connect › Start the virtual flight controller) is always in the simulation.
- Board › Upload to the drone: sends the program over Wi-Fi. Board › Open the drone's program shows what is on it.
5. Flying a program
- On the phone's Switches step, put FORGE on a flight-mode switch position (or on the FORGE takeover switch).
- Take off in ALTHOLD or LOITER and switch to FORGE: the program starts.
- When the program ends, the flight controller takes over: LOITER with GPS, ALTHOLD without (level, holding its height).
- To take over at any time, switch your radio to another mode.
6. Data in and out (optional)
A program can send and receive its own packets: over USB with a computer on the drone (for example a small single-board computer with a camera), and over the telemetry radio with a computer on the ground (for example one reading a GPS on a truck). You describe each packet with blocks: its values, their sizes and how often it comes.
Each value coming in also says where it comes from in FORGE Studio: a camera's view of a marker, a GPS receiver, or any actor's own value, Marketplace actors included. Studio then plays that computer, with the errors, delays and lost packets a real one has. On the drone your own computer sends the same bytes, so the program you proved is the program that flies. The packets run in every flight mode, not only while the program flies the drone. Fly › Data links shows each packet as it comes and goes.
7. Good to know
- A program can never turn off a failsafe or the geofence. "FORGE may fly ACRO" (Tune › GUIDED and FORGE) is off unless you turn it on.
- Export C shows the program as source code, to read or keep.
- Building and uploading programs needs an active Studio plan; programs already on the drone keep flying without one.
UVIRA Aerospace · Generalizing Special Application Drones