Here are the top 7 most exciting things we’ve got going on:

1. Flight Core is now shipping! Check out the latest PX4 flight controller from ModalAI. Flight Core is Made in the USA and can be paired with our VOXL platform for PX4 obstacle avoidance. We have support for programming Flight Core with the latest PX4 software in QGroundControl. More details here in the Flight Core Manual.

2. Say cheese! 4k video on board. Multiple 4k sensors are now available for VOXL, check them out here and here. More sensor options are coming soon!

3. We’re hittin the small screen Check out co-founder and CTO, Donald Hutson, and his STEM-supporting BattleBots efforts in Subaru commercial. Look closely and you can see an early proto of one of our upcoming products, VOXL-CAM. 

4. CES Showcase - We highlighted our latest in indoor, GPS-denied autonomy with our partner PMD in a video at this year’s CES show. (Watch)5. It’s a party! We’ve enabled multiple users to view video and control missions on a single SUAS. Our voxl-vision-px4 library, which enables native indoor/outdoor GPS-denied navigation and visual obstacle avoidance, now supports multiple QGC instances. This is useful for networked drones where multiple users want to monitor progress or video from a mission.

6. The mission continues...we’re continuing to add hardware capabilities based on your feedback. If it’s just one extra connection you are looking for our M0017 USB expansion and Serial debug board is now shipping. It exposes an expansion USB with a robust, locking connector for robotics applications.

7. Developers welcome! ROS is easiest to use when running in Ubuntu. To make VOXL as developer friendly as possible, we have been testing running Ubuntu 16.04 and ROS Kinetic in a Docker directly on VOXL. More details on accelerating your robotics and ROS development with Docker can be found here.

Please post any suggestions or feature requests at support.modalai.com and we will do our best to incorporate in future releases.

We are frequently updating the following resources and encourage you to visit:

• docs.modalai.com
• developer.modalai.com
• support.modalai.com

Begin your autonomous robot and drone development now with the tools and technologies offered by ModalAI. Sign up for our newsletter at shop.modalai.com to keep up with the news.

 

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Sound the gong, blast the confetti, Flight Core, our PX4 flight controller, is now available for pre-order! The demand for a US-made flight controller is growing, so we’ve been hustling (and drinking lots of coffee) to bring ours to market as quickly as possible. Bench testing ✔ Flight testing ✔ Datasheet ✔

Flight Core pairs with the VOXL navigation and companion computer for GPS-denied navigation and obstacle avoidance. VOXL dev kits are available in our online store.

We’ve been ramping up new features to the VOXL platform like it’s a Tesla Model 3. Our goal is to create the #1 most accessible autonomous computing and communications platform for drones and robots. Check out the list of new features below.

Our VOXL-Flight development efforts are on the move. Look for it to be the industry’s first fully-integrated obstacle avoidance companion computer and flight controller on a single PCB (Say that 3 times fast). The mission of the VOXL-Flight is to support a fully redundant electronics stack, while minimizing connections, for the market’s most capable certifiable flight controller. We expect it to be available early 2020. Can’t wait for the VOXL-Flight to launch? You can begin your development now by purchasing the components separately. Sign up for our newsletter below to keep up with the news.

New Features

Here is a list of some of the new features that have been added recently.

Documentation: How to run Docker containers on VOXL

Documentation: How to connect VOXL to Pixhawk Telemetry to send commands or QGroundControl data over WiFi or LTE 

Code: Deep learning with Alexnet using ARM Compute Library with GPU acceleration

Code: An example OpenCL hello world program running on VOXL for GPU acceleration

Please post any suggestions or feature requests at support.modalai.com and we will do our best to incorporate.

We have the following resources available and encourage you to visit:

• docs.modalai.com
• developer.modalai.com
• support.modalai.com

VOXL is ModalAI's autonomous computing and platform built around the Snapdragon 821. The VOXL architecture combines a single board computer with a depth camera, flight controller and cellular modem to create fully autonomous, connected drones and robots! 

Single Board Computer: VOXL-DK is light-weight, but powerful. It is driven by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821, runs Linux with OpenCL, has tons of I/O and pre-certified WiFi.

Depth Camera: VOXL-DK-MV is designed for quick integration of computer vision based autonomy. It bundles the VOXL-DK and computer vision cameras for depth mapping and visual tracking for GPS-denied navigation.

Cellular Communications: The VOXL-ACC-LTEH-NA is an add-on that plugs in to the VOXL's board to board connector. It enables LTE capability for the following North American cellular carriers: Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.

Flight Controller: ModalAI has a Pixhawk FMUv5x-derived flight control board coming in October, 2019. This board is designed to operate with VOXL, but can be used independently as well. In the meantime VOXL can be paired with any Pixhawk compatible flight controller running PX4.

Please check it out and reach out at support.modalai.com if you have any questions or concerns.

We have the following resources available and encourage you to visit:

• docs.modalai.com
• developer.modalai.com
• support.modalai.com