About

Pixhawk2.1

The Pixhawk 2.1 grew from the Pixhawk Hardware Project. this project was a group effort by the PX4 and Ardupilot teams, with the support of 3DRobotics.

At the Beginning of 2014, The Ardupilot Community took the lead on the EE of the future Pixhawk 2. the brief was simple... add Vibration isolation, make it code compatible with PH1, and make it simpler to integrate into OEM air frames.

Then came the next requirements..... Smaller, with more pins...

So the project was broken into use cases.

A simple Quad copter with basic Gimbal
A large Octocopter with 3 Axis Gimbal, landing gear and shutter control.
A CANBUS only vehicle.
A large fixed wing with many flight control surfaces, multiple Airspeed sensors

The concept of a modular approach was born. allowing for simple carrier boards that simply served as wiring looms to connect components in a neat and professional manner.
The cube concept was born.

in 2015, the project returned to the community, and gained sponsorship from ProfiCNC.
ProfiCNC has partnered with Hex Technology to bring this product to the community.

Other partners will be bringing different accessory boards to the market. Please see the Blog section for more information.

The hardware team

Project lead

Philip Rowse
Alan Sanchez

EE

Philip Rowse
Jeff Wurzbach
Mike Smith

Mechanical

Alan Sanchez
Jason Short
Amilio Aviles
Alex Chen

Test Equipment

Alan Sanchez
Angus Peart
Andrew Tridgell
Siddharth Purohit
YK_Xie
Chris Johnston
Leson

Industrial Design

Jason Short
Brian Currens
Philip Rowse

Community Liaison

Lorenz Meier: PX4 Comunity Manager
Randy Mackay : ArduCopter lead
Andrew Tridgell: Ardupilot Lead
Craig Elder: Ardupilot community Manager
Seppo Saario: RF Design, Schematic reviews

Community

So many people to mention here.... Thank you all for your support.
Special mention to the PX4 and Ardupilot teams, Jani Hirvinen, Paul Riseborough, and of course the Pixhawk Pub....

The code....

Ardupilot is the worlds leading professional Open Autopilot:
The choice is yours – one autopilot for any mission
Plane, Copter, VTOL, Rover, Boat, Sub

for more information, please go to Ardupilot.org
Rocket science straight from the best labs: PX4 powers anything from racing to cargo drones.

For more information, please go to http://px4.io/

OPEN HARDWARE

The Pixhawk 2 Schematics are open under the CC-BY-SA-3.0

https://github.com/proficnc/pixhawk2.1

History

2013 Discussions in the community started about what the next system would look like.
January 2014, the Cube concept was formed.
March 2014, 3DR sponsored the first Prototypes of the board.
June 2014, Team Aussie 3DR win the AVC competition with the 3DR Skywalker. This aircraft had prototype Pixhawk 2 GPS, and Power systems on board. (Thanks Philip Rowse, Craig Elder, Kevin Hester, Arthur Benemann
2014, Pixhawk 2 was selected to be the Autopilot in the 3DR Solo.
December 2014, Pixhawk2 stand alone is delayed...
2015, the year of Solo.... an estimated 100,000 Pixhawk 2.0 cubes are built and sold in Solo.
January 2016, ProfiCNC announces the intention to continue the work of Pixhawk 2, and commences the search for a manufacturing partner.
March 2016, Hex Technology and ProfiCNC sign an agreement for Hex to build the Pixhawk 2.1 with the full backing of the Ardupilot team and PX4, Hex in return agrees to put a percentage of funds from sales towards the Ardupilot Initiative, for use in the ardupilot project.
July 2016 the first Alpha batch of Pixhawk 2.1 cubes, and the full carrier boards come off the line.
.......... TBC........