3D Robotics

3DR Robotics

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Industry	Drone software
Founded	2009; 15 years ago (2009)
Founders	Chris Anderson, Jordi Muñoz
Headquarters	Berkeley, California
Products	Drone software, drone data analytics
Brands	Site Scan
Number of employees	70+
Website	3dr.com

Prior to 2016, the company designed and marketed commercial and recreational unmanned aerial vehicles including consumer drones, ready-to-fly quadcopter for aerial photography and mapping, and fixed-wing UAVs based on the Ardupilot platform. However, as of September 2016, 3DR and the major open source Ardupilot development community separated due to disagreements over the license of the open source code on which 3DR products are based.

The company was co-founded as 3D Robotics in 2009 by author and entrepreneur Chris Anderson and Mexican engineer Jordi Muñoz. The pair met online through the DIY Drones community, which Anderson originally started for aerial vehicle enthusiasts.

Below is a list of products released by 3DR.

Solo Drone. Released in May 2015 and marketed to the consumer and professional aerial photography market, it is powered by two computers and designed specifically for the GoPro Hero camera. The stated aim of the SOLO drone is the ease of both flying the drone and taking professional aerial photos and videos.

 

IRIS+ Drone. Released in September 2014, it was designed as a recreational drone. It comes with a mounted GoPro camera to take pictures. The drone is capable of flying 40 miles per hour and has a range of up to 3,280 feet.

X8 Quadcopter. Released in November 2014, the X8 quadcopter has a modular design and comes in 2 versions. The X8+, with a built-in gimbal and GoPro camera is aimed at aerial photography and cinematography. The X8-M quadcopter is intended for mapping applications. Both X8 versions feature waypoint navigation technology.

Aero-M Fixed Wing UAV. Released in November 2014, the Aero-M Fixed Wing UAV is fully automated and has a mapping platform that creates georeferenced and orthorectified mosaics. This fixed wing drone has an estimated flight time of up to 40 minutes and is able to photograph an area of up to 250 acres per flight. The Pix4D software allows for the creation of georeferenced, photogrammetry and orthorectified mosaics from the images. The Aero-M UAV is intended to benefit conservation efforts and industries such as farming and construction, through the creation of geo-referenced maps.

As of March 2016, 3DR announced that they would no longer be manufacturing drones. In response to the company ceasing to produce hardware, a former employee^[who?], interviewed in Forbes magazine in 2016, is quoted as saying "3DR was a $100 million blunder based on ineptitude."

In addition to its Site Scan platform, 3DR makes professional flight controllers which are intended for multi-rotor stabilization control of various platforms or heavy payloads in aerial photography, mapping, and personal enjoyment. In addition to the main Pixhawk flight controller model, there is also the less robust APM 2.6 model. Pixhawk is an autopilot system designed by the PX4 open-hardware project and manufactured by 3DR. It features processor and sensor technology from ST Microelectronics and a NuttX real-time operating system. The APM 2.6 is an open source autopilot system. It allows the user to turn fixed rotary wing or multirotor vehicles, including cars and boats, into fully autonomous vehicles capable of performing programmed GPS missions with waypoints.

3DR is a founding member of the Dronecode Consortium, a non-profit organization governed by the Linux Foundation. The Consortium was formed in 2014 with the goal of using open source Linux for the benefit of users with affordable and more reliable UAV software. Other notable members are Intel, Qualcomm, Parrot SA, and Walkera.