Companion Computer

The companion computer is the onboard Linux system that bridges high-level autonomy software to the flight stack.

What it does

A companion computer typically runs:

• ROS 2 nodes
• DroneOS services and APIs
• the bridge between onboard software and PX4
• camera pipelines
• networking tools such as mesh VPN or cellular modem management

Current baseline

The current documented baseline is Raspberry Pi 5.

That path is:

• proven on real hardware
• documented today
• the current reference integration

Additional path being added

A Jetson Orin Nano path is being added as an additional companion-computer option.

Why add it:

• more compute headroom than Raspberry Pi 5
• better fit for onboard perception workloads
• stronger base for object detection and future inference workloads

Selection guidance

Choose Raspberry Pi 5 if you want:

• the currently proven path
• the simplest way to match existing real-hardware docs
• the lowest-friction integration

Choose Jetson Orin Nano if you want:

• more onboard compute headroom
• to prepare for heavier perception workloads
• to develop toward future onboard AI use cases

Important framing

DroneOS should support multiple companion-computer integrations.

The goal is not to replace the Raspberry Pi path. The goal is to make the companion-computer layer more flexible.