Pixhawk is an independent open-hardware project that aims to provide the 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 ®.

What is an Open Design?

The Pixhawk project provides open designs following the OSHW 1.1 definition.

Designs are (typically) 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).

Tip

A minimum design must include all information required for a manufacturer to create a hardware product that is firmware compatible with other hardware created to the same design. This might not be a full schematic, but must include a clear pinout definition of all components, information about I2C buses (e.g. which are internally available vs what is attached internally), etc.

The project also delivers reference hardware for some open designs. If created, these are delivered as PCB layout files, and shared under the same license.

Manufacturers are encouraged to take the open designs (and/or open reference hardware) and create firmware-compatible products that are best suited to a particular market or use case (the physical layout/form factor not part of the open specification).

Note

While a physical connector standard is not mandated, newer products generally follow the Dronecode^® Autopilot Connector Standard.

Hardware Designs

FMU (Autopilot) Designs

The project has created a number of different open designs for flight management units (autopilot hardware). 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 main differences):

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

Sapog ESC Hardware - The directory sapog_reference_hardware contains the reference hardware design for the Sapog ESC firmware.

Other

Autopilot Products

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):

MindPX V2 Hardware

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.

Licensing and trademarks

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.