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Hi everyone,

The new NavBoard M3 has all the inertial sensors and GPS capability you need, along with onboard processing and a native USB interface for easy code changes and use as a dedicated serial port!

While not specifically a drone or autopilot, we recently upgraded our I2C sensor based Navigation Board with on board processing and USB connectivity.  This board was originally designed for use with Howard Gordon's SRV robots (and is still used with them).  However, the recent upgrade was done to allow the unit to perform as a standalone unit as well.

The NavBoard contains:

• U-Blox GPS with onboard antenna and external antenna jack
• ITG-3200 3 axis rate sensor
• LIS3LV02DQ 3 axis accelerometer
• HMC 5843 3 axis magnetometer
• LPC 1343 ARM Cortex M3 processor (32k flash, 8k ram)

Best of all, the firmware is all open source.  A Visual Basic .net GUI for interfacing to the unit is open source as well.  https://code.google.com/p/navboard-m3/

With no firmware programmed into the ARM, or holding it in reset using a jumper, the unit is an I2C device with all the inertial sensors, magnetometers, and GPS capabilty you need to interface to an autopilot.

With on board firmware, you can customize the unit into a standalone device capable of anything needing attitude and location information.  Even rudimentary autopilot capability can be programmed into the unit!

So feel free to check out the manual, videos and software here:

http://www.ryanmechatronics.com/index_files/NavBoardM3.htm

We hope you find it useful!