FRUITFLY is an open-hardware programmable research micro-drone printed circuit board for developing programmable and intelligent autonomous drone applications. It comes in a ready-to-fly kit and is primarily designed for Arduino/Intel Galileo environment. This low-cost platform is heavily focused on developing programming skills and drone technology expertise.

With low-cost and open-hardware electronics it is a perfect platform for a wide variety of education and robotics research applications like: navigation, spatial awareness, attitude estimation and control, etc. Apart from education and research, FRUITFLY is also designed as a racing drone with powerful motors and speed controllers and a very small footprint in order to foster skill development and innovation.

Moreover, as a part of the open-hardware initiative, the design and other documentation is licensed through Creative Commons and will be available for download and further innovation and upgrading.

First revision of this open-hardware platform includes: a 9 degree of freedom inertial measurement unit (accelerometer, gyroscope magnetometer) with attitude heading reference system (AHRS) provided by XSens; high-accuracy altimeter and battery power monitor sensor for battery status and monitoring. The revision includes all the necessary flight hardware to start application development right out of the box.

Many more sensors and options are planned for future development and I am hoping to continue developing hardware and software applications for FRUITFLY with help of the community.