Chips, Boards and Platforms
The control, camera and communications electronics inside today’s commercial drones have to pack in an ambitious amount of functionality while keeping size, weight and power as low as possible.
By Jeff Child, Editor-in-Chief
There aren’t many areas of embedded systems these days that are as dynamic and fast-growing as commercial drones. Drones represent a vivid example of a technology that wouldn’t have been possible if not for the ever-increasing levels of chip integration driven by Moore’s law. Drones are riding that wave, enabling an amazing rate of change so that 4k HD video capture, image stabilization, new levels of autonomy and even highly integrated supercomputing is now possible on drones.
The Intel Aero Ready to Fly Drone is a pre-assembled quadcopter built for professional drone application developers. The platform features a board running an Intel 2.56 GHz quad-core Intel Atom x7-Z8750 processor.
To get a sense of the rapid growth of drone use, just consider drones from the point of view of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Integrating commercial drones into the FAA’s mission has been a huge effort over the past couple years. To paraphrase Michael P. Huerta, Administrator of the FAA, there are over 320,000 registered manned aircraft today and it took 100 years to reach that number. In contrast, only nine months after the FAA put its drone registration process in place, there were more than 550,000 registered users—comprised of both hobbyists and commercial drone users.
— ADVERTISMENT—
—Advertise Here—
Electronics for Drones
Today’s commercial/civilian drone technologies are advancing faster than most people could have imagined only a couple years ago. And drone designs will continue to reap the benefits of advances in processor / chip technologies, sensor innovations and tools that make them easier to create. Feeding those needs, chip and board vendors of all sizes have been rolling out solutions to help drone system developers create new drone products and get to market quickly. Among these vendors are large players like Intel and Qualcomm–along with a whole host of specialized technology suppliers offering video ICs, single-chip cameras and a variety of sensor solutions all aimed at drone platforms. ….
Sponsor this Article
Circuit Cellar's editorial team comprises professional engineers, technical editors, and digital media specialists. You can reach the Editorial Department at editorial@circuitcellar.com, @circuitcellar, and facebook.com/circuitcellar
