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MicoVIO: visual-inertial odometry for ArduPilot and PX4 — without a companion computer

· 3 min read
Robofusion
Robofusion
Open-source drone telemetry, sensing & comms

For as long as open-source drones have flown indoors, "VIO" has meant a project: a RealSense camera, a Raspberry Pi or Jetson, ROS, a VIO package, a MAVLink bridge, and a week of getting them to agree with each other. MicoVIO, launched by MicoAir on 15 October 2026, collapses all of that into a 16-gram module that plugs into a spare UART on an ArduPilot or PX4 flight controller and streams position, velocity and attitude as standard MAVLink 2 ODOMETRY messages. No companion computer, no SDK, no calibration routine.

Why this matters​

An optical flow sensor gives the autopilot a velocity; the position is integrated from it and drifts. Visual-inertial odometry tracks hundreds of features across frames of a real camera, predicts the motion between frames with an IMU, and solves for a full six-degree-of-freedom pose. That is the difference between "hovers without wandering into the wall" and "flies a waypoint mission under a bridge deck and comes back to where it took off from." MicoAir quotes a typical trajectory error of 1 % of distance flown; in outdoor flights against RTK ground truth, 136 m and 141 m tracks ended within 0.73 m and 0.70 m.

Until now that capability came with a stereo or tracking camera (Intel RealSense D435 / T265) plus an onboard computer — several hundred dollars, well over a hundred grams, and a software stack that tends to diverge when the light changes or the aircraft is bumped. MicoVIO runs the whole pipeline on the module, with a large-format global-shutter HDR sensor that works from about 1 lux, IMU-aided tracking that stays locked through 300°/s yaw spins, and local loop closure that keeps a hover pinned.

What we have published​

  • MicoVIO — User Manual — every specification from MicoAir's datasheet, the MAVLink messages it sends, pinout and wiring, mounting rules, the complete ArduPilot (≥ 4.5.2) and PX4 parameter sets with notes for ArduPilot 4.6 vs 4.7, MicoAssistant testing, and operating limits.
  • VIO vs Optical Flow — what's the difference? — a plain-English explainer of what each sensor measures, why optical flow drifts, what VIO adds, and which one a given build actually needs — including a section for anyone still looking for a RealSense T265 replacement.

Availability​

The first North American batch is expected between late October and mid-November 2026. The product page is live for reference; to reserve units, or to talk about volume purchasing for fleets and research groups, email info@robofusion.net. Note that the flight controller needs firmware with external-vision support — H7 boards such as the MicoAir H743 V2 and the NxtPX4 V2 qualify; most F405 boards do not.