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PXFmini, an open autopilot shield for the Raspberry Pi Zero

Posted by Víctor Mayoral on December 28, 2015 at 8:30am

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Following up with the PixHawk Fire Cape (PXF) series that was started a while ago, I'm happy to announce the PXFmini, an open autopilot shield for the Raspberry Pi. This autopilot shield allows anyone to create ready-to-fly autopilots with support for Dronecode’s APM flight stack priced at only 69 €. The shield has been designed with low cost in mind and specially for the Raspbery Pi Zero (it is also compatible with other Raspberry Pi boards). Find below some of its features:

 

A tiny yet powerful design

The PXFmini shield weighs only 15 grams and on it’s 31mm x 71 mm embeds all the power electronics necessary to comply with most of the existing components for drones using its 2xI2C and UART ports.

The design is based on previous iterations with proper APM upstream support and provides 8 PWM output channels as well as a PPMSUM input.

 

A shield for sensing

PXFmini includes a 9 axes IMU (MPU9250), a digital barometer (MS5611) and an ADC for voltage measurements.

 

An improved experience

Forget about breaking those DF13 connectors. We’ve decided to bet on the new JST GH connectors (adopted by the Dronecode Foundation) to provide an amazing new experience. We’ve also partnered with manufacturers to provide DF13 to JST GH converters.

 

Open design

All the schematics are open for you to hack around. They’ll be released as soon as the boards start shipping. Shipping will start in early February 2016.

 

We made a short clip closing the year where we show the board:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXZb2gN9SEg

 

Thanks everyone and merry christmas!

Tags: erle, pxf, pxfmini, robotics, drones, robot
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Comments

  • LightWare - Laser Developer December 28, 2015 at 1:53pm

    @Victor - yes, I made a CAN shield that fits under the Pi0 so that another shield can also run on the top side. The only problem is that the courier company "lost" the first batch of boards so I'll have to wait until January to get some more made :(

  • Víctor Mayoral December 28, 2015 at 1:50pm

    Early February 2016, probably within the first week if not earlier.

  • Bjorn Nellerson December 28, 2015 at 1:48pm

    When will the boards ship?

    Thanks

  • Víctor Mayoral December 28, 2015 at 1:45pm

    Hi Laser Developer. No it doesn't. You were working in a CAN shield for the Pi0, right?

    A sandwich concept could make sense ;).

  • LightWare - Laser Developer December 28, 2015 at 1:37pm

    Nice! Does it support UAVCAN bus?

  • Greg Dronsky December 28, 2015 at 1:35pm

    That was quick. Looking forward to checking it a little closer. :)

  • Víctor Mayoral December 28, 2015 at 1:07pm

    Hi Tommy, indeed you can. There's an example of how to connect yourself to a GCS from a Linux autopilot at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKJyeTF_Qbo.

  • Tommy Larsen December 28, 2015 at 12:54pm

    Nice!

    Can I use Mission Planner to control this one?

  • Víctor Mayoral December 28, 2015 at 12:50pm

    As indicated in the content above, schematics will be released when we start shipping the first boards. As for the layout, there's no plan to release them publicly.

  • Moderator
    Roberto Navoni December 28, 2015 at 12:48pm

    Good Job Victor , i had same idea when i saw the RPI zero ;) But now i'm very busy with VR Maper 300 ;) 

This reply was deleted.