Aerium System’s Lumen is a carrier board for NVIDIA Jetson SO-DIMM modules designed specifically for drones and robots with a range of low-profile connectors for I/Os for USB, UART, I2C, etc…, and three M.2 sockets for storage and wireless expansion.
It targets the same applications as ARK Electronics’ NDAA-compliant Jetson Orin Nano/NX carrier board for drones we covered last year, but it’s not sold as a full kit and lacks NDAA-compliance. On the positive side, it is quite smaller and lighter, so it might be better suited to smaller and/or less complex drones or robots that may still benefit from Vision AI acceleration.
Aerium Lumen specifications:
- Compatible system-on-modules
- NVIDIA Jetson Nano
- NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX
- NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano
- NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX
- NVIDIA Jetson TX2 NX
- Potentially other Jetson-compatible SO-DIMM modules like the Mixtile Core 3588E, but those are not listed by the company.
- Storage
- MicroSD card slot
- M.2 Key-B socket for NVMe SSD
- Camera I/F – 2x MIPI CSI
- Networking
- Ethernet connector
- M.2 Key-E socket for WiFi/Bluetooth module
- M.2 Key-B socket and Nano SIM card slot for 4G LTE cellular module
- I/O connectors
- 2x I2C, 2x SPI
- 1x CAN Bus
- 3x USB (1x OTG)
- 1x UART, 1x UART / RS232, 1x UART / RS422/485
- 1x I2S for audio
- 5-port Ethernet switch
- Logic Voltage: 3.3V
- M.2 Expansion – Key-M socket for storage, Key-E socket for WiFi/Bluetooth, and Key-B socket for 4G LTE
- Misc
- FRC (Flash, Back, and Restore) button
- Fan connector
- RTC battery holder
- Power Supply- 6 to 36V via 6-pin power connector
- Dimensions – 89.5 x 59 mm
- Weight
- Without NVIDIA Jetson – About 50 grams
- With NVIDIA Jetson and heatsink – Around 120 grams
On the software side, we are told the Lumen carrier board includes onboard software packages that include sensor and adapter drivers, computer vision algorithms, navigation algorithms, motion controllers, etc.. The documentation mostly focuses on the hardware part, but also explains how to install the Jetpack SDK on the board by using the NVIDIA SDK manager, like on the Jetson Orin Nano developer kit. There are also some extra steps asking the user to run scripts for USB OTG, /dev/THS1 serial port, and MIPI CSI enablement/configuration.
Target applications for drones and robots include non-GPS navigation, object detection, loitering munition, digital image stabilization, object tracking, and depth estimation.
Aerium sells the Luman Jetson carrier for $225 on its website, and the NVIDIA Jetson SO-DIMM module of your choice would have to be sourced separately.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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