This New X-Fly drone mimics a bird’s flight (Crowdfunding)

x fly the drone designed to soar like a bird

Aeronautical engineer Edwin Van Ruymbeke has introduced X-Fly, a drone that emulates the flight pattern of a bird. The drone communicates via Bluetooth using the STM32WB15CC microcontroller, has a range of 100 meters, and can fly for 8-12 minutes with a swappable battery system. The company mentions that they have collaborated with the French military to develop the flapping wings mechanism, which incorporates gyroscopes and g-sensors, ensuring a stable flight. The drone can be controlled with a smartphone app or an attachable optical joystick and It’s also durable against crashes, has a quick-swap battery system, and improved wing mechanics for longer flights. We’ve previously covered drones such as the Qualcomm Flight RB5-based drone Kudrone Nano Drone and some drone kits like Qualcomm Flight Pro. Feel free to explore these if you’re interested. Key Features and Specification of X-Fly Drone: Control Board – The PCB features an STM32WB15CC Bluetooth microcontroller, motor […]

Persee N1 – A modular camera-computer based on the NVIDIA Jetson Nano

Orbbec Parsee N1 camera computer kit

The Persee N1 is a modular camera-computer kit recently launched by 3D camera manufacturer, Orbbec. Not too long ago, we covered their 3D depth and RGB USB-C camera, the Femto Bolt. The Persee N1 was designed for 3D computer vision applications and is built on the Nvidia Jetson platform. It combines the quad-core processor of the Jetson Nano with the imaging capabilities of a stereo-vision camera. The Jetson Nano’s impressive GPU makes it particularly appropriate for edge machine learning and AI projects. The company also offers the Femto Mega, an advanced and more expensive alternative that uses the same Jetson Nano SoM. The Persee N1 camera-computer also features official support for the open-source computer vision library, OpenCV. The camera is suited for indoor and semi-outdoor operation and uses a custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for enhanced depth processing. It also provides advanced features like multi-camera synchronization and IMU (inertial measurement […]

Lite3DP Gen 2 is a tiny, open-source resin 3D printer (Crowdfunding)

lite3dp gen 2 resin printer

The Lite3DP Gen 2 3D Printer builds on the success of its predecessor. With a new and improved design, an ESP32 microcontroller replacing the Arduino Pro Mini, and several other improvements, the Lite3DP Gen 2 is well-suited for making small, detailed resin prints. It is slightly bulkier than the Lite 3DP S1 3D printer but is still compact enough to fit into a bag. Gen 2 has been designed to maintain backward compatibility with the older model, and owners of existing Lite3DP printers can use the Gen 2 dev kit to upgrade their printers. The resin 3D printer is completely open-source (firmware, hardware, and software), and you can use the schematics, Gerber files, code, and other resources hosted in the GitHub repository to build a different kind of mSLA resin printer. Lite3DP Gen 2 key features & specifications: Electronics – All-in-one PCB with ESP32 microcontroller, high-res LCD, an ultra-silent TMC2209 […]

M5StickC PLUS2 IoT development kit features ESP32-PICO-V3-02 SiP, larger 200 mAh battery

M5StickC Plus2 IoT development kit

M5Stack M5StickC PLUS2 is a battery-powered ESP32 IoT development kit with a 1.14-inch display, a built-in microphone, a 6-axis gyroscope and accelerometer, a few buttons, a buzzer, a Grove connector and a GPIO header for expansion. It builds upon the M5StickC Plus released in September 2020, but replaced the ESP-PICO-D4 SiP with an ESP32-PICO-V3-02 still based on ESP32 WiSoC but having 8MB SPI flash and 2MB flash and also features a larger 200 mAh battery along with a new CH9102 USB to TTL chip and does without a PMIC. M5StickC PLUS2 key features and specifications: ESP32-PICO-V3-02 SiP – Espressif Systems ESP32-PICO-V3-02 system-in-package with ESP32 dual-core WiFI and Bluetooth IoT processor @ up to 240 MHz, 8MB SPI flash, 2MB PSRAM Display – 1.14-inch Color TFT LCD with 135×240 resolution (ST7789v2 driver) Audio – SPM1423 microphone, buzzer USB – 1x USB-C port for power and programming using CH9102 USB to TTL chip […]

Giveaway Week 2023 – VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit

VOIPAC IMX8M Industrial Development Kit Review

The 10th edition of CNX Software giveaway week is on! We’ll have seven items to give away this time around: six items that I will send myself from my review samples and one from a company that will offer one of its own IoT development kits… We’ll start this year’s giveaway week with the VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit equipped with an “iMX8M Industrial Pro” system-on-module powered by an NXP i.MX 8M quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, fitted with 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC flash, and a WiFi and Bluetooth module. The VOIPAC iMX8M industrial development kit is quite a feature-rich development board whose main purpose is to evaluate the company’s system-on-module for integration into final products. I tested it last summer showing how to get started with the Yocto BSP by building the image from scratch, booting from the eMMC flash or a microSD card, and testing several features such as networking, […]

MediaTek Genio 1200 Arm Cortex-A78/A55 EVK gets official Ubuntu 22.04 support

Mediatek Genio 1200 Ubuntu

Canonical and MediaTek announced optimized Ubuntu images for the Genio 1200 EVK during Embedded Word 2023 last March, but at the time, I could not find any images for download, and there was just an invitation to come check out Ubuntu Core running on the MediaTek Genio platform at the event. But things have progressed well, and Canonical has now announced the availability of Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop and Server for not only the high-end Genio 1200 EVK, but also the mid-range Genio 700 EVK, and the entry-level Genio 350 EVK. That should be good news, as when I tested the i-Pi SMARC 1200 devkit earlier this year (June 2023), the Genio 1200 Arm Cortex-A78/A55 processor (aka MediaTek MT8195) showed really good performance in benchmarks, but at the time, the only option was to use a Yocto image, which is great, but there were still some unresolved software issues and the […]

Renesas RZ/G2L and RZ/V2L SMARC 2.1 system-on-modules target HMI and Edge AI applications

SMARC 2.1 Evaluation Kit for Renesas RZ/G2L and RZ/V2L

ARIES Embedded has recently launched two SMARC-compliant MRZG2LS and MRZV2LS system-on-modules (SoM) powered by respectively a Renesas RZ/G2L dual-core Cortex-A55/M33 microprocessor with Arm Mali-G31 GPU and H.264 video codec (H.264) and a similar Renesas RZ/V2L MPU adding a built-in ‘DRP-AI’ AI accelerator for vision applications. Those are the first SMARC modules from the company and they are well-suited for applications such as entry-class industrial human machine interfaces (HMIs), embedded vision, edge artificial intelligence (edge-AI), real-time control, industrial Ethernet connectivity, and embedded devices with video capabilities. ARIES Embedded MRZG2LS and MRZV2LS key features and specifications: SoC – Renesas RZ/G2L or GZ-V2L with Application CPU – Single or dual Arm Cortex-A55 up to 1.2GHz Real-time core -Arm Cortex-M33 GPU – Arm Mali-G31 VPU – H.264 codec AI accelerator – DRP-AI on Renesas RZ/V2l only (MRZV2L SoM) System Memory – 512MB to 4GB DDR4 RAM Storage – SPI NOR flash, 4GB to 64GB […]

AMD Kria K24 Zynq Ultrascale+ system-on-module targets motor control and DSP applications

AMD Kria 24

The AMD Kria K24 System-on-Module (SOM) with a custom-built Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC and the KD240 Drives Starter Kit are designed for the development of cost-sensitive industrial and commercial edge applications. The new Kria K24 is about half the size of a credit card and uses half the power of the larger, but connector-compatible, Kria K26 SOM that was introduced in 2021 for computer vision applications when the company was still known as Xilinx. That means existing K26 carrier boards can be reused with the Kria K24 SOM without modifying the PCB, but note there’s only one 240-pin connector on the new module, plus an extra 40-pin connector. AMD Kria K24 specifications: MPSoC – Custom-built Zynq Ultrascale+ XCK24 Quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor  up to 1.3 GHz Dual-core Arm Cortex-R5F real-time processor up to 533 MHz Mali-400 MP2 GPU up to 600 MHz FPGA fabric with 154K logic cells AMD Deep Learning […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC