Collaboration between 96Boards and Dronecode
96Boards and Dronecode have come together to collaborate on open drone standards. To further strengthen the relationship between 96Boards and Dronecode, 96Boards is pleased to announce that the company has become a Gold Member of Dronecode and respectively, Dronecode is proud to announce that it has become a member of 96Boards and will join the steering committee.
96Boards will incorporate different components of the Pixhawk hardware standard in forms of mezzanine products, and new specifications, further enhance the growth and standardization of the open drone ecosystem.
96Boards is well respected within the industry for providing innovative and flexible solutions. It provides a range of hardware specifications created by Linaro to make the latest ARM-based processors available to developers at a reasonable cost. The specifications are open and define a standard board layout for SoC-agnostic (processor independent) development platforms that can be used by software application, hardware device, kernel and other system software developers. Boards produced to the 96Boards specifications are suitable for rapid prototyping, hobbyist projects or incorporation into new systems for a wide range of applications including desktop and laptop computing, the digital home, digital signage, point of sale (POS), high-end audio, robotics and drones, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, IoT and industrial control. Standardized expansion buses for peripheral I/O have led to a wide range of compatible add-on mezzanine boards that will work across a variety of 96Boards products. Users have access to a wide range of boards with different features at various price points. In addition, some SoC vendors have announced long term availability of the SoC to encourage their use in products with long life cycles.
“We are very excited to join Dronecode in helping define the standard for next phase mass adoption of the open source drone technology.” said, Dr. Yang Zhang, Director of 96Boards, “96Boards as the largest cross silicon platform standard organization is uniquely positioned to help Dronecode to achieve such ambition.”
Dronecode is a US-based non-profit, and vendor-neutral foundation for open source drone projects. Dronecode helps nurture the open-source communities, guides project governance, provides infrastructure, and critical services to mass adoption. Some of it’s supported projects include PX4 Autopilot, MAVLink, QGroundControl, and MAVSDK. The PX4 Autopilot is the most widely adopted open-source flight controller. It has a complete ecosystem of components that has been driving industry standards for unmanned vehicles, ranging from protocols for onboard and intra-vehicular communications to UI and SDKs that provides full flight control and mission planning. Pixhawk open standards provide hardware specifications and guidelines for drone systems, such as the most advanced flight controllers in the industry, an ecosystem of payload interfaces, and smart battery management. The Dronecode foundation creates a sustainable collaboration framework for the ecosystems’ advancement and adoption. The entity is funded through yearly memberships by organizations that support open ecosystems and standards. Dronecode is part of the non-profit Linux Foundation.
“The Dronecode Foundation is thrilled to join 96Boards, and collaborate on the development of open hardware standards for the PX4 Autopilot ecosystem, the largest commercially adopted open-source flight stack.” said, Dr. Lorenz Meier, Chairman of Dronecode, “Dronecode with the help of its member organizations, are openly collaborating in the development of the Pixhawk standard, we welcome 96Boards and thank them for their support.”
Join us at the PX4 Developer Summit
96Boards will join Dronecode and the PX4 community at the second edition of the PX4 Developer Summit, streamed LIVE on July 6 & 7. The PX4 Developer Summit is a drone development conference targeted towards professional and aspiring drone developers, roboticists, software engineers, researchers, students, and academia. The event, streamed live for free, is the yearly check-in for the PX4 community at large. Learn more about the PX4 Developer Summit.