The Beta Program for Flyt is now on! To sign up, please visit: http://www.flytbase.com.
What is Flyt?
Flyt platform consists of an advanced flight computer system (FlytPOD) and its operating system (FlytOS), that allow developers and researchers build and deploy custom drone applications for variety of use-cases, such as, precision agriculture, surveys, delivery, aerial photography, inspections, etc. It is built on proven components to seamlessly handle all the complexities of making drones work, and provides the right toolset to developers to efficiently implement high-level application logic.
The key features provided by the Flyt platform are:
- Open APIs to write custom drone applications in Python / C++ / REST / ROS.
- Plug-n-play payload support: easily integrate your application specific payloads (cameras, sensors, actuators).
- Octa-core processor: implement image-processing, SLAM and other computationally intensive algorithms, onboard your drones.
- SDK and sample apps for Web/Mobile: create custom UI for your applications.
Why Flyt?
Flyt is built by the young multidisciplinary team of researchers at NavStik Labs. Having worked with various drone developers and researchers across the world, we realised that although the technology has matured to enable use of drones in a variety of commercial applications, it was still quite challenging to build one! The developers need to deal with a number of layers (in hardware and software), before they can get started with the real work of building the business application. Further, we could not find any suitable flight-computer, available off-the-shelf, that a developer can get started with. This was the genesis of Flyt.
Flyt offers a radically different approach to building drone applications. The communication architecture has been designed ground-up, to allow seamless data-sharing between onboard apps and ground (web/mobile) apps. This allows easy integration of custom payloads (sensors, actuators), as required for the application. ROS and OpenCV are an integral part of the platform, making it extensible and compliant with standards. Advanced capabilities, such as, onboard image-processing, swarm, SLAM, AI / ML, cloud-connectivity, etc. can be easily integrated on Flyt. The innovative FlytConsole app makes it easy to configure/manage your FlytPOD through a web/mobile interface.
With Flyt, we hope a number of developers and researchers will be able to jump start their drone projects. A large number of common components, needed for any advanced drone application, have been pre-implemented in the framework, which are exposed through open APIs. SDKs and sample-codes make it easy to build custom onboard and web/mobile apps, to get the drones working for you!
Tech Specs:
Hardware (FlytPOD):
- Processors: Octa Core – A15 @2GHz, A7 @1.4 GHz, and ARM Cortex-M4 @180MHz
- RAM: 2GB
- Graphics: Mali T628 (600 MHz)
- Storage: 32 GB
- Sensors:
- 3-axis Accelerometer
- 3-axis Gyroscope
- 3-axis Magnetometer
- Barometer, GPS
- Support for: Dual GPS & Mag, Gimbal, LiDAR, Px4Flow, Camera
- Communication: Built-in High Power WiFi – Dual Antenna, ext. 3G/4G dongle, ext. radio options.
- Interfaces:
- GPIOs, ADC, UART, SPI, I2C, CAN
- 2 x USB3.0 + 1 x USB2.0
- HDMI Out
Software (FlytOS):
- Linux: Lubuntu 14.04
- ROS Indigo, OpenCV 2.4.11
- FlytCore v1.0, FlytConsole v1.0
- OpenWRT for networking
- C++, Python, ROS, RESTful APIs
- SDKs for Web/Mobile
- Support for Multirotors, Fixed-Wing
- Authentication, Security and Updates Management
Launching Beta Program!
We have completed the internal trials and are launching the beta program. We will be working closely with select beta-flyters, over next few months, to get their drone applications up and running. We hope to gather a lot of valuable feedback and fine-tune the platform, to suit their needs, during the course of this program.
We are looking to engage with researchers and developers who are keen on building advanced drone application for various use-cases. If you would like to participate in the beta program, please visit: http://www.flytbase.com
We are working on extensive documentation, user manual, tutorial videos, and sample onboard/web/mobile apps to help you get started!
We are all ears for any comments or feedback!
