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Mars drone developer now wants to build open-source drones for Earth

Switzerland-based maxon, whose precision systems are enabling NASA’s Ingenuity drone and Perseverance rover to explore Mars, is joining forces with open-source drone platform company Auterion.

The collaboration is being formed for the benefit of enterprise and government drone customers. Between Auterion’s drone avionics module Skynode and maxon’s trusty BLDC motors, electronic speed controllers, and matching propellers, commercial and industrial drones can be expected to deliver impressive energy efficiency, flexibility, safety, and performance.

Both maxon and Auterion hope that a joint offering of their collective know-how will make commercial drone operation and fleet management dramatically easy for enterprise and government customers, and bring down the development costs. The companies plan to explore long-term opportunities around propulsion systems, autopilot communication, data sharing, and real-time monitoring.

Open-source software champion meets unparalleled hardware expertise

Auterion has always maintained that open source is the way forward for the drone industry and that the future of drone scaling depends on software-defined drones that comply with federal directives. And this partnership with maxon will allow the California-based company to support open ecosystem integrations across commercial, government, and nonprofit verticals.

Insisting that cooperation with maxon will enable Auterion to foster open-source standardization while addressing regulatory frameworks, company cofounder Kevin Sartori says:

We’re seeing utility companies and others that specifically require drone service providers to offer systems compliant with regulatory executive action. Ultimately, our open-source, software-defined ecosystem built with outstanding partners like maxon is what will instill greater trust in drone components and autonomous technologies.

Meanwhile, maxon, a precision systems specialist with a long, proven history of designing and developing drive components and motors, is convinced that an alliance with Auterion will provide a solid boost to its partner network. And as such, the Swiss manufacturer will be able to advance state-of-the-art drone technology to solve customer problems.

Eugen Elmiger, CEO of maxon Group, quips:

With our motors in NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter, we flew on Mars. Now we are focusing on drones on Earth, which will play an important role in the automated future. I am very pleased that we are entering into a cooperation with Auterion, sharing our knowledge and experience so that we can better serve customers in the dynamic drone market. Their expertise in drone software coupled with our 60 years of experience as a global motor and drive specialist will generate promising solutions for the future.

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Avatar for Ishveena Singh Ishveena Singh

Ishveena Singh is a versatile journalist and writer with a passion for drones and location technologies. She has been named as one of the 50 Rising Stars of the geospatial industry for the year 2021 by Geospatial World magazine.