Drone Sim

Drone Sim is a browser-based engineering lab for quadcopter frame design and flight testing. It combines:

• parametric frame and print-layout views
• assembly fit and structural checks
• live flight telemetry, debug overlays, and replay inspection
• a local MCP debug sidecar for live state reads and patches

Run locally

Prerequisites:

• Node.js 20+
• pnpm

Install and start the app:

pnpm install
pnpm dev

The Vite app runs on http://localhost:3000.

Scripts

• pnpm dev - start the app
• pnpm build - production build
• pnpm preview - preview the production build
• pnpm lint - TypeScript typecheck
• pnpm mcp:debug - start the local debug MCP bridge

Local MCP debug bridge

The repo includes a local MCP server in tools/drone-sim-debug-mcp that can attach to the running browser session and:

• fetch UI + telemetry state
• patch params, sim settings, view settings, and debug settings
• set waypoints and toggle autopilot

VS Code can start the sidecar from \.vscode/mcp.json.

Typical loop:

1. Run pnpm mcp:debug
2. Run pnpm dev
3. Open the app in the browser
4. Connect through the MCP server or the included agent docs in .github/agents

Local debug bridge scratch files live under .drone-sim-debug/ and are ignored by git.

Project layout

• src/App.tsx - app shell and scene composition
• src/components/ - viewport UI, inspectors, overlays, and controls
• src/sim/ - shared simulation config and engineering/flight domain logic
• tools/drone-sim-debug-mcp/ - local MCP sidecar for live inspection/control

Physics direction

This repo treats the sim as an engineering instrument, not just a visual toy:

• prefer physically plausible forces over teleports or visual hacks
• keep verification visible in-app through telemetry and overlays
• gate unrealistic assemblies before flight mode accepts them