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The Robot Report

ModalAI’s VOXL Flight Combines Powerful Autonomy Computer and PX4 Flight Controller on a Single Board

Organization: ModalAI
Country: USA
Website: https://www.modalai.com/
Year Founded: 2018

ModalAI’s VOXL Flight enables and simplifies the development of drone-based solutions for a wide range of industrial and commercial applications.

Description:
In April 2020, ModalAI, a Qualcomm spin out, released VOXL Flight, a development platform for GPS-denied autonomous drone localization and navigation, along with computer vision for AI-powered object recognition, depth sensing and obstacle avoidance.

The SWaP-C (size, weight, power consumption, and cost) optimized VOXL Flight incorporates a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC and PX4 flight controller on a single board, and can support up to four image sensors for simultaneous 4k video capture, streaming and machine vision processing. An LTE Add-on is available that plugs in to the VOXL's board to board connector enabling command and control for operations beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS).

Analysis:
VOXL Flight’s single-board architecture (small size, low weight) and powerful compute, imaging and navigation features makes it a great choice for autonomous drone developers building systems for indoor flight (and other GPS deprived environments), as well as large scale, 4G LTE-enabled BLOS operations. As such it enables and simplifies the development of drone-based solutions for a wide range of industrial and commercial applications.

For companies developing solutions for the US defense depart, it is also notable that the VOXL Flight is developed and manufactured in the United States, and so is compliant with the USA’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2020 which bars the US military from purchasing unmanned aircraft systems that are designed or manufactured in foreign countries. – Dan Kara

ModalAI VOXL Flight

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