Protocol Reference

Architecture, data flow, and API surface.

VerSky™ is a layered protocol — physical to application — built so any drone, eVTOL, or autonomous aerial vehicle can participate without vendor lock-in.

v0.1-alpha · Reference spec · Implementation in Phase 2

System Overview

A four-layer stack.

VerSky sits at Layer 3 — between the network transport and the application. Hardware (L1) and the OS/fleet manager (L4) are out of scope for the protocol itself.

Layer

Application

Consumer-facing software that calls VerSky APIs.

Fleet ManagerDrone OSMission PlannerCompliance Dashboard

Layer

Protocol

The patent-protected protocol layer — VerSky.

Altitude-Direction EncodingHex-Cell ReservationAACP P2P NegotiationTrust Scoring

Layer

Network

Transport for protocol messages and audit logs.

P2P Mesh (LoRa / 5G)VerSky Cloud (REST + WS)Hash-Chain Log Sink

Layer

Physical

Hardware that runs the protocol stack.

GNSS ReceiversIMU SensorsRadio / ModemCompute (MCU / SoC)

Data Flow

Two parallel channels: peer-to-peer and cloud.

Drones broadcast intent and position over P2P mesh radio for low-latency deconfliction. The same data is mirrored to VerSky Cloud for audit and visibility.

UDP · LoRa · 5G mesh

P2P Channel

Sub-second latency. Drones in radio range subscribe to each other's intent broadcasts. No central authority required for deconfliction.

HTTPS · WebSocket

Cloud Channel

Eventually-consistent mirror. Hash-chained logs for accident investigation, regulatory dashboards, and historical analysis.

Hex Spatial Reasoning

Why hexagons, not squares.

Square grids have eight neighbours but only four with equal distance — the diagonals are √2× further. Hexagons have six neighbours, all equidistant. That symmetry is what lets altitude encode direction uniformly.

Neighbours

6 equidistant cells per altitude band

Tessellation

Perfect — no gaps, no overlaps

Direction encoding

6 hex faces × N altitude bands = 6×N total directional slots

Conflict surface

Reduced — each cell shares an edge, not a corner

Cell capacity

Per-cell soft cap based on radio range and minimum separation

API Reference · v0.1-alpha

REST + WebSocket surface.

The protocol exposes four primary endpoints. Implementation reference (Python + C++) ships in Phase 2.

POST/v1/reservationsReserve a 4D space-time slot in the hex grid.

Request

{
  "vehicle_id": "uuid",
  "route": [{ "lat": 13.7563, "lng": 100.5018 }, ...],
  "altitude_band": 140,
  "direction_class": "SE",
  "eta_ms": 1200,
  "priority": "delivery"
}

Response

{
  "reservation_id": "rsv_4f3a...",
  "cells": ["H7-NE-140", "H8-E-140", ...],
  "expires_at": "2026-05-10T08:42:31Z"
}

WS/v1/intentSubscribe to live intent broadcasts within a geo-radius.

Request

{
  "subscribe": { "centre_lat": 13.75, "centre_lng": 100.5, "radius_m": 5000 }
}

Response

{
  "vehicle_id": "uuid",
  "position": { "lat": ..., "lng": ..., "alt": 140 },
  "intent": { "next_cell": "H7-E-140", "uncertainty_m": 12 },
  "trust_score": 0.94,
  "ts": "..."
}

POST/v1/negotiationsInitiate P2P negotiation for an intersection conflict.

Request

{
  "initiator_id": "uuid",
  "responder_id": "uuid",
  "conflict_cell": "H7-NE-140",
  "proposal": { "yield": false, "alt_change": +20 }
}

Response

{
  "agreement": "accepted",
  "fallback_used": false,
  "log_hash": "0x4f3a89b1...",
  "ts": "..."
}

GET/v1/audit/{reservation_id}Retrieve hash-chained audit log for a reservation.

Request

—

Response

{
  "reservation_id": "rsv_4f3a...",
  "events": [
    { "t": "...", "type": "reserved", "hash": "0x..." },
    { "t": "...", "type": "negotiation", "hash": "0x..." },
    ...
  ],
  "chain_valid": true
}

Reference spec only. URLs, field names, and types may change before v1.0. The reference implementation and SDK ship in Phase 2 (Q3–Q4 2026).

Negotiation Sequence

From reservation to resolution.

A canonical drone-to-drone negotiation. Total round-trip target: < 800 ms.

#	Actor	Action	Target
01	Drone A	POST /reservations	VerSky Cloud
02	VerSky Cloud	200 OK + reservation_id	Drone A
03	Drone A	BROADCAST intent (P2P)	Nearby Drones
04	Drone B	Detect conflict at H7-NE-140	—
05	Drone B	POST /negotiations	Drone A (P2P)
06	Drone A	Counter-propose: alt_change +20	Drone B
07	Drone B	Accept · log hash 0x4f3a...	Both + Cloud
08	Drones	Execute resolution, broadcast new intent	All

Reference Implementation

Open source. Released under Apache 2.0.

The reference implementations ship with an explicit patent grant — anyone can adopt the protocol freely for research, prototyping, and non-commercial use.

Python

Phase 2

Reference implementation, simulation harness

C / C++

Phase 2

Embedded SDK for flight controllers (PX4, ArduPilot)

Rust

Phase 3

High-throughput cloud workers

TypeScript

Phase 2

Browser/Node.js client SDK

License · Apache 2.0 with Patent Grant

Apache 2.0 explicitly grants patent rights from contributors. Combined with our patent filings, this means the protocol stays open for the long term — no rug-pull, no relicensing.

Read the License →