Pixhawk is an independent open-hardware project that aims to provide "the gold standard" for readily-available, hiqh-quality and low-cost autopilot hardware designs for the academic, hobby and developer communities. Pixhawk supports multiple flight stacks: PX4 ® and ArduPilot ®.
Note Designs are provided for a number of components used in unmanned vehicles, including: Autopilots (Flight Management Units - FMUs), ESCs (electronic speed controllers), optical flow sensors, etc.
The Pixhawk project provides open hardware designs following the OSHW 1.1 definition.
In essence, this definition allows anyone to freely study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the designs (or hardware based on the designs) under the terms of a particular open source licence (you can find more about the open source licence we use below).
Hardware designs delivered by the project are listed below.
Pixhawk FMU open designs include all information required to create an autopilot hardware product that is firmware compatible with other hardware created from the same design. Manufacturers are encouraged to take the designs and create products that are best suited to a particular market or use case (e.g. for very small vehicles, or those that operate at environmental extremes).
Note While a physical connector standard is not mandated, newer products generally follow the Pixhawk Connector Standard.
Designs are usually specified in the form of schematics that show all included components (CPU, sensors, etc.), how they are connected, and their pin mappings. They may also include a BOM (bill of materials).
Note Not all designs deliver schematics.
The project provides reference hardware/layouts for some based on some open designs, in the form of PCB layout files.
These are shared under the same license as the open design, and hence may be used in the same ways.
The Pixhawk project has evolved the FMU design through a number of verisons.
These are named using the designation: FMUvX (e.g.: FMUv1, FMUv2, FMUv3, FMUv4, etc.). Higher FMU numbers indicate that the board is more recent, but may not indicate increased capability (versions can be almost identical - differing only in connector wiring).
The designs listed below (with a high level overview of the main differences).
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| FMUv1 & IOv1 | (Discontinued) Original Flight Management Unit and Separate I/O board. |
| FMUv2 | Single board with STM32427VI processor. |
| FMUv3 | Identical to FMUv2, but usable flash doubled to 2MB. |
| FMUv4 | Increased RAM. Faster CPU. More serial ports. No IO processor |
| FMUv4-PRO | Slightly increased RAM. More serial ports. IO processor. |
| FMUv5 | New processor (F7). Much faster. More RAM. More CAN busses. Much more configurable. > Note Minimum specification provided (pinout info, but no schematics). |
- Sapog ESC Hardware - The directory sapog_reference_hardware contains the reference hardware design for the Sapog ESC firmware.
The following boards are commercial products that are derived from the Pixhawk FMU designs above (information is provided here under the terms of the open source license):
Note Many other products are based on the FMU designs, but are not "derived products" under the terms of the license (and are hence not listed here). For other hardware see PX4 User Guide > Pixhawk Series.
Pixhawk project schematics and reference designs are licensed under CC BY-SA 3.
The license allows you to use, sell, share, modify and build on the files in almost any way you like - provided that you give credit/attribution, and that you share any changes that you make under the same open source license (see the human readable version of the license for a concise summary of the rights and obligations).
Note Boards that are derived directly from Pixhawk schematic files (or reference boards) must be open sourced. They can't be commercially licensed as proprietary products.
Manufacturers can create (compatible) fully independent products by first generating fresh schematic files that have the same pin mapping/components as the FMU designs. Products that are based on independently created schematics are considered original works, and can be licensed as required.
Product names/brands can also be trademarked. Trademarked names may not be used without the permission of the owner.
Tip Pixhawk is a trademark, and cannot be used in product names without permission.