THE MISSION
Drone designs unmanned aerial vehicles that navigate complex, unknown spaces on their own. Our focus is perception, positioning, and navigation, backed by in-house CAD, PCB design, and manufacturing. Our drones use depth cameras, visual SLAM, and onboard compute to map and plan their own flight paths.
View the code
Real-time 3D mapping
Software backbone
Onboard compute
Flight control
IN 3D
Spin, zoom, and drag the Explode slider to pull each drone apart and see how every part fits together.
Indoor mapping drone
Our Spring 2025 SLAM quadcopter maps and flies with all sensing and compute onboard: an Intel depth camera and an Nvidia Jetson, no off-board processing.
Mars rover mapping drone
Our 2024–2025 companion drone for the NASA Mars Rover competition: fully autonomous waypoint flight, a 750 g payload, and photos to map terrain for the rover.
THE CODE
We build on open-source flight and mapping tools. Dig into the code, fork it, and come build it with us.
MAPPING
rtabmap_ros
The visual SLAM library behind our indoor drone: real-time 3D maps and visual-inertial odometry in ROS 2.
introlab/rtabmap_ros
FLIGHT FIRMWARE
ArduPilot
ArduCopter runs on our flight controllers and takes in our SLAM pose through its EKF.
ArduPilot/ardupilot
How software, electrical, and mechanical fit together.
Visual SLAM
RTAB-Map turns an Intel RealSense depth camera’s stream into a live 3D map and visual-inertial odometry.
Occupancy maps
OctoMap converts the point cloud into an occupancy grid that marks free and occupied space for planning.
Pose to autopilot
We feed the SLAM pose into ArduPilot’s EKF3 as external navigation, so the drone can fly without GPS.
Simulation
A Gazebo and MAVProxy setup lets us fly and test code before anything leaves the ground.
Onboard compute
An Nvidia Jetson Orin Nano runs ROS 2 Humble, the RealSense driver, and RTAB-Map, with GPU acceleration to keep odometry fast.
Up next
Path planning through 3D occupancy maps (we’re evaluating D*+ and RRT*) and onboard object detection.
Compute
An Nvidia Jetson Orin Nano companion computer runs ROS 2 Humble on JetPack 6.2 and handles all mapping onboard.
Flight control
An ArduPilot flight controller runs ArduCopter and drives the ESCs and motors.
Sensing
An Intel RealSense depth camera for mapping, plus GPS and Remote ID for outdoor flights.
Power & radio
A flight battery up top, plus a long-range Ubiquiti Wi-Fi radio link on the rover companion drone.
Up next
A custom PCB, designed in Altium, to power and connect all of our electronics.
Carbon fiber
We build with carbon fiber plates and tubes to keep our frames stiff and light.
3D-printed parts
We 3D print complex components, from sensor and electronics mounts to full ducts.
CAD designs
Parts modeled in CAD around each project’s needs.
Other airframes
Quadcopters, fixed-wing, and ducted-fan platforms.
OUR FLEET
01
Mars rover drone
2024–2025: a companion drone for the NASA Mars Rover competition that maps terrain to help the rover plan its path.
02
Indoor SLAM drone
Spring 2025: maps with all sensing and compute onboard. Shown at the Undergraduate Research Fair, ESE Day, and Drone Day.
03
Ducted-fan hover rig
A hover vehicle built around an electric ducted fan. Flaps redirect airflow to control the drone’s movement.
04
Fixed-wing long-range drone
Our newest project: a fixed-wing drone built for efficient long-range flight.
OUR STACK
ROS 2
Python
MAVProxy
Gazebo
ArduPilot
MAVLink
Raspberry Pi
Intel RealSense
Nvidia Jetson
RTAB-Map
OctoMap
Onshape
Altium
Git & GitHub
JOIN THE TEAM
We welcome anyone who wants to build things that fly. No one needs to know everything. Relevant skills include:
Software
Software development in Python, ROS 2, and Linux
Autonomy
Perception, positioning, and navigation: SLAM, path planning, and control
Flight systems
Autopilot setup and tuning with ArduPilot and MAVLink
Mechanical
Mechanical design, CAD modeling, and 3D printing
Electrical
Wiring, soldering, and PCB design
Mindset
Curiosity, rapid learning, and working independently and collaboratively
All projects