SparkFun's Epigone Is a Quick-Build Platform for NASA's F' — As Found on Mars, Powering Ingenuity
Following NASA's purchase of one of SparkFun's LIDAR-Lite modules, the company has now built its own Ingenuity-like testbed drone.
SparkFun has celebrated one of its products — a Garmin laser altimeter — forming part of the payload of the Ingenuity helicopter currently preparing to take flight in the atmosphere of Mars by building a drone of its own, "with," the company jokes, "some of the same technology as NASA and none of the international scrutiny."
Ingenuity, which is currently being prepared for its first flight on April 11, is a first for space exploration: A fully-autonomous helicopter drone, which will prove that powered flight is possible in the Martian atmosphere. "After that," NASA notes, "the team will attempt additional experimental flights of incrementally farther distance and greater altitude."
Designed as a technology demonstration platform and proof-of-concept, Ingenuity is equipped with a range of publicly-available hardware and developed under an open source ethos. One item in particular, a Garmin LIDAR-Lite laser altimeter, comes from well-regarded hobby shop SparkFun — and the company has celebrated by building a drone of its own.
"We wanted to get very meta with this, and decided to do a demonstration of Ingenuity's technology, which itself is demonstrating flight on Mars," SparkFun's Avra Saslow explains. "So, we built a drone utilizing similar hardware and the software framework on Ingenuity, and tested just how hard it is to fly here on Earth. Introducing: the Epigone Drone!"
Epigone is built around items you can easily pick up at SparkFun: Its on-board computer is a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 4GB single-board computer with a PiJuice hat for wireless power, there's a Qwiic shim, a Qwiic-connected version of the LIDAR-Lite module, and a GPS breakout, all strapped to an off-the-shelf drone with duct tape.
The system runs the same software framework as the real Ingenuity: F' (F Prime), released by NASA under an open source license. "It has community participation and documentation," Saslow writes, "which is pretty incredible considering this is the software used on NASA deployables. It's advantageous because it's rapid, adaptable and reusable...it's not only been used on Ingenuity but also CubeSats, SmallSats and other instruments."
The full project write-up, including a first-flight video, is now available on the SparkFun blog; IEEE Spectrum, meanwhile, has more about the development of the real Ingenuity with still more available on the official NASA website.