When we talk about a Pixhawk flight controller, we specifically talk about those flight controllers that are designed and manufactured according to Pixhawk standards. Pixhawk is an open source (open hardware) project that provides low cost and high end hardware designs. The Pixhawk project provides a schematic design including the set of components such as CPU, sensors, connectors, etc. as well as their connections between them.

Pixhawk Flight Controller Manufacturers 

There are many manufacturers that produce Pixhawk flight controllers including CUAV, Holybro, and HEX. They all use the same design schematic but with different form factors to fit the application that the flight controller is designed for. They manufacture their modules using either Aluminum for a more sophisticated look and higher durability, or Plastic for lower cost and lighter weight.

Pixhawk Flight Controller FMU versions

Each schematic or hardware design of a Pixhawk flight controller is based on a FMU version. All the boards that are designed based on a specific FMU version should be binary compatible. The first version was FMUv2 which was based on STM32427VI processor. Pixhawk 1 is an example of a Pixhawk flight controller that is based on FMUv2. Each version may or may not include a slight upgrade compared to the previous version by either increasing the RAM size, upgrading to a faster CPU, or increasing the number of serial ports. For example FMUv4-PRO added a separate IO processor to reduce the overload of the main processor. The latest FMU version are FMUv6X which the CUAV Pixhawk V6X and Holybro Pixhawk 6X are designed based on, and FMUv6X-RT which has a 1GHz MCU core (vs 480Mhz on 6X) and Holybro Pixhawk 6X-RT is designed based on it.

Companion board compatibility

Companion boards and mini PC modules can be installed on the drones in order to do some processing and then send some commands to the flight controller to control the drone. Raspberry Pi boards or Nvidia Jetson boards are some of the models that are popular for this purpose. Some manufacturers like Holybro have manufactured baseboards that can be connected to both the main autopilot and the companion board at the same time to make the wiring and installation easier. Holybro Pixhawk 6X with Jetson Baseboard and Holybro Pixhawk RPi CM4 UAV Flight Controller baseboard are two of those designs that support connection of Jetson NX board and Raspberry Pi Compute Module, respectively. 

Pixhawk Flight Controller Firmware 

There are two major open source firmware projects that currently fully support Pixhawk flight controllers, PX4 and Ardupilot.

They are almost compatible with each other, with some small differences between the two: for example some of the parameters are different. Each of the projects have their own Ground Control Station (GCS) software. QGround Control for PX4 and Mission Planner for Ardupilot. However, it doesn’t mean that if you are using a Pixhawk flight controller running PX4 you can not connect it to Mission Planner for setup and monitoring.

Pixhawk Flight Controller Trademark

All Pixhawk Flight Controllers designs are licensed under CC BY-SA 3.

Price Range

Pixhawk Flight Controllers can be as cheap as around 100$ such as Holybro Pixhawk 6C or can have richer sets of high quality sensors and cost more than 1000$ such CUAV Pixhawk X7+ Pro.