AuterionOS

How we drive forward international UAV standards

Our commitment to open source standards is part of our DNA and a key element of our strategy to elevate and grow the entire drone industry.

We work in open collaboration with partners and bodies like the Dronecode Foundation to create common standards that make drone components and products easier to produce and maintain for everyone. These standards form a secure, common roadmap that gives everyone involved, whether vendors or buyers, confidence that they will achieve a return on their investment.

We create all our software and hardware based on these widely adopted standards, so our customers and partners can be confident their investment in our products will be protected for the long term; and gives them access to a wide range of partners and integrations in an open, growing ecosystem.

Standards bodies we work with

The Dronecode Foundation

A nonprofit hosted under the Linux Foundation, Dronecode is dedicated to building a sustainable open source ecosystem. With members including Microsoft and NXP, it is a neutral, independent organization open to all collaborators. Auterion is the organization’s main sponsor.

ASTM International

As members of ASTM, an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products and systems, we are working on type certification for unmanned aerial vehicles.

Drone standards we drive and build on

Pixhawk

Creator: Lorenz Meier

Pixhawk is an independent, open hardware project that provides standards for readily available, hiqh-quality and low-cost autopilot hardware designs for the academic, hobby and developer communities. Pixhawk was created in 2008 by Auterion co-founder Lorenz Meier as a student project at ETH Zurich, where Lorenz and his team created MAVLink, Pixhawk, PX4, and QGroundcontrol. Today, these are the most used standards for flight control hardware and autopilot software in the drone industry.

Visit the project at pixhawk.org

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MAVLink

Creator: Lorenz Meier

The Micro Air Vehicle Communication Protocol (MAVLink) is a communication protocol for UAV systems and components, widely used for communications between ground stations, autopilots and companion computers. The protocol is currently being updated to support signing/authentication and other features that are becoming increasingly important.

Visit the project at mavlink.com

Open source projects

PX4

Creator and maintainer: Lorenz Meier

Since its inception in 2011, PX4 has become the most widely used open-source flight control system for drones and other unmanned vehicles with a permissive software license. Supported by the US Government and used by companies like GE Aviation, the PX4 project provides flexible tools for drone developers.

The community has grown to over 10,800+ developers using PX4, with even the US Department of Defense mandating the 5 SRR companies and winner Skydio to use open communication protocols and open source ground station software. Auterion continues to lead the charge in the progress of PX4, with over 56% of code contributions in 2020.

Visit the project at px4.io

MAVSDK

Maintainers: Julian Oes and Jonas Vautherin

The Micro Air Vehicle Communication Protocol (MAVLink) is a communication protocol for UAV systems and components, widely used for communications between ground stations, autopilots and companion computers. The protocol is currently being updated to support signing/authentication and other features that are becoming increasingly important.

Visit the project at mavlink.io

QGroundControl (QGC)

Maintainers: Gus Grubba and Don Gagne

Chosen by the U.S. Department of Defense as its ground control platform for the architecture of Group 1 drones, QGC is a complete and fully customizable control station for MAVLink-based drones. The project releases stable apps in the iOS and Android app stores and offers desktop support for Linux, macOS and Windows.

Visit the project at qgroundcontrol.com