Professional drone flight planning. Try For Free.

Yes, UgCS Open is free with no expiry, no trial period, and no credit card. The daily usage limits are what keep it free, rather than a countdown clock, so you can use it for as long as you like. You only pay if you choose to upgrade to a license that lifts those limits.

It's the real software. UgCS Open runs on the same core engine as UgCS Expert, so you get full 3D mission planning, terrain following, and drone control, not a limited preview. The differences are the daily limits and the advanced toolsets reserved for paid tiers.

UgCS Open is the same planning engine with three daily limits, while paid licenses lift those limits and add advanced tools. Paid tiers such as UgCS Expert include the LiDAR toolset, corridor mapping, large-area surveys, and multi-drone operations. If your work fits inside two route uploads a day, 250 m between the two furthest route points, and two concurrent projects, Open covers it.

It caps the straight-line distance between the two most distant points of a single route, not the total distance you fly. In practice it limits how large an area one mission can span, so a compact mapping or survey site fits while a long corridor or wide site will exceed it. The actual flight path can still weave back and forth within that span.

UgCS Open supports the same drone platforms as UgCS, including DJI, FreeFly, Inspired Flight, ArduPilot, PX4, and many NDAA-compliant Blue UAS aircraft. You can check the current model list on the supported drones page before downloading, and custom profiles are available for Pixhawk-based aircraft.

Yes. You plan the mission on your computer in UgCS Open, then connect to DJI Pilot 2 to fly it, with the launch performed from the Pilot 2 interface on your controller. For ArduPilot and PX4 aircraft, you can upload and launch directly from UgCS Desktop.

No, the dedicated LiDAR toolset and corridor mapping are paid features and are not part of Open. Open covers 3D planning, terrain following, and photogrammetry and mapping grids within the usage limits. If you need LiDAR missions or corridor work, UgCS Expert is the tier to look at.

Yes, you can use UgCS Open for real survey, mapping, and photogrammetry work as long as each job fits within the daily limits. Plenty of pilots run small commercial jobs on Open and move to a paid license once projects grow past two uploads a day or the 250 m route span.

You need internet once to activate with your email and to cache maps and elevation data. After that, planning and flying work fully offline, so you can operate in remote sites with no cellular coverage. Activation is a one-time email confirmation with no credit card.

You upgrade by activating a paid license in the same app, with no separate install or migration. Because Open and the paid versions share the same engine, your saved missions and settings stay in place and the daily limits simply lift. You can compare licenses whenever your projects outgrow Open.