ModalAI® x Dronecode
ModalAI and the Dronecode Foundation
ModalAI has been a Silver member of the Dronecode Foundation since 2019. Dronecode is the Linux Foundation project that stewards PX4, MAVLink, QGroundControl and MAVSDK, and those are the projects our hardware runs. VOXL 2 and VOXL 2 Mini run PX4 directly on their sensors DSP through voxl-px4, a wrapper around ModalAI's maintained PX4 fork, so a ModalAI autopilot is a PX4 flight controller and a companion computer on one board. That approach began with VOXL Flight, the first open-development platform to fuse the two.
Dronecode Projects on VOXL
| Project | How it is used |
|---|---|
| PX4 | The flight stack on VOXL 2 and VOXL 2 Mini, running as voxl-px4 with QRB5165 support ahead of upstream releases. |
| MAVLink | voxl-mavlink-server exposes the autopilot's MAVLink stream to on-board applications and ground stations. |
| MAVROS | ROS 1 and ROS 2 access to PX4, with a tutorial that flies a figure eight from a ROS node on VIO. See ROS drones. |
| MAVSDK | Vehicle control from C++, Python or Swift, running on the aircraft or a ground computer. |
| QGroundControl | The ground station our quickstarts use for parameters, calibration and live video from voxl-streamer. |
Board of Directors
ModalAI CEO Chad Sweet served on the Dronecode Foundation board of directors from 2021 through the end of 2025, appointed for the 2021 cycle and again for the 2023 cycle. ModalAI's 2021 announcement is in our press releases.
Events and Talks
| Event | ModalAI sessions |
|---|---|
| PX4 Developer Summit 2022 | James Strawson on using Dronecode projects and computer vision for autonomous navigation; panels on consumer versus industrial hardware and on building a connected supercomputer in the sky. |
| PX4 Developer Summit 2021 | Chad Sweet on 5G and the next generation of open-source drones; James Strawson on autonomous navigation with PX4 offboard mode, with slides and MAVLink references. |
| Dronecode Open Source Drones Summit 2020 | Travis Bottalico on how ModalAI builds on PX4, QGroundControl and MAVROS across the VOXL product line, with a resource list. |
Get Started
Every Dronecode project above is documented for VOXL at docs.modalai.com, and our engineers answer PX4 and MAVLink questions on the developer forum. If you want an aircraft that arrives running PX4, start with Starling 2 Max.