Wanna build your own drone? Intel emits Linux-powered x86 brains for DIY flying gizmos

Intel has a bunch of new and updated hardware kits for engineers to toy with and use to build prototypes – from a DIY drone kit to a bunch of beefy Internet of Things packages. The most interesting is the Aero drone-building kit, available now to order. You use this single-board computer as the control electronics in a …

[Mikel]

Wait, what?

This was supposed to be an article about Intel and the words "Microsoft" and "Windows" occur nowhere in it. There must be some mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Drone board?

It's kind of 'wow' expensive, when you consider it can be done with a £1.50 Arduino and a few plug in extras.

Nice feature set but not necessarily something I'd want to lose up a tree or, in the case of the DJI I saw recently, wedged in the central reservation crash barriers of a motorway.

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me an arduino doing vision processing.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't, you're absolutely right but would I want the drone doing video processing while it was using the same board to fly?

[YARR]

Image processing is required in order to make a drone (semi-)autonomous (so it controls where to fly). Presumably an RPi3 with a custom drone interface board could offer a respectable equivalent at a far lower price point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical Intel

Right now, you can order one of these for just shy of 400 bucks

They have to be joking or they don't want to sell very many of these boards. But then this is typical Intel - over priced for what it does.

[Steve Evans]

Re: Typical Intel

I don't think it's intended for the likes of us mortals.

It's too big, expensive, heavy and power hungry (meaning a bigger, heavier battery) for a regular civilian drone. Do you really want to send an SSD into the air?

I guess they're got to do something to shift those "lower-power" Atoms, even if they are going to start fabbing ARM chips.

Looks quite fun with the onboard FPGA, although if you want to fly an FPGA you can do it for a fraction of the cost (weight and power consumption) with https://folknologylabs.wordpress.com/2016/08/03/storm-in-a-pint-pot/

[Mage]

Re: Typical Intel

Also doomed.

x86 can't compete in portable, low power or IoT. Too expensive and too power hungry.

[druck]

I blow raspberries at it

Nothing you couldn't do with a Raspberry Pi for a tenth of the price, and have more payload from not having carry around bigger batteries to power an Intel chip.

[jms222]

Just need an enormous ****ing battery pack and you're good to go

[Dave Stevenson]

Motion detection?

"The board also sports a MIPI CSI-2 camera interface and a USB3 connector to an Intel RealSense motion-detector cam, if fitted."

Realsense is predominantly depth sensing, not motion sensing. Minor detail.