Compute Board, Accessory Camera Kit, and Enclosure Are Available (Now) Separately or (Soon) Together

At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, Intel revealed a new developer kit and accessories for UAVs that it said will allow developers to build their own drones. 

The Intel Aero Platform consists of the Aero Compute Board ($399), which is about the size of a deck of playing cards (88mm x 63mm x 20mm); the optional Vision Accessory Kit ($149), which includes three different cameras (including an Intel R200 RealSense camera) and cables; and the Enclosure Kit ($69), a mechanical enclosure designed to hold the board and accessory cameras.

The Aero Compute Board features a quad-core Atom x7-Z8700 64-bit CPU with burst processing at up to 2.4 GHz as well as 4 GB of low-power DDR3-1600 RAM, 16 GB of flash (eMMC) storage and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. It offers a number of I/O expansion options as well as a microSD card slot and an M.2 connector (single-lane PCIe) for an SSD. Intel says the board weighs less than 60 g with a heatsink attached.

"Plug-and-play" options include a flight controller with open-source Dronecode PX4 software, Intel RealSense vision technology, the AirMap SDK for airspace services, and LTE communications, Intel said.

Intel is also taking reservations for a complete, ready-to-fly Aero drone (unpriced so far) for shipment in the fourth quarter.

Also at IDF, Intel announced that the Yuneec Typhoon H platform is now available, for an extra fee, with Intel's RealSense technology for obstacle navigation. The Typhoon H with RealSense sells for $1899.