A Reliable, High-Performance Alternative to Legacy Autopilots: Upbeat Launches Bluemag Pi with Onboard AI

As drone developers look for a dependable alternative to legacy flight controllers, the Bluemag Pi pairs real-time flight-critical performance with onboard AI inference — a combination most incumbent autopilots weren't built to deliver

NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan, Oct. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Upbeat Technology, a pioneer in ultra-low-power compute, voice, and edge AI sensing solutions, today announced the launch of Bluemag Pi, a sensor-integrated AI flight controller built for long-endurance fixed-wing aircraft, commercial multirotor drones, and unmanned surface vessels. The board runs on Upbeat's UP301 system-on-chip, which pairs SiFive's E3 and E2 RISC-V processor cores in a dual-core architecture built for flight-critical applications.

The UP301's multicore architecture separates time-critical flight tasks from communication, navigation, and system-management functions, improving responsiveness and reliability. The board provides ample RAM, nonvolatile storage, hardware floating-point capability, timers, direct memory access (DMA), and interrupt resources to support advanced flight operations. Bluemag Pi runs the Apache NuttX real-time operating system and is compatible with the industry's leading open-source flight-control stacks, including PX4, ArduPilot, and Betaflight.

The launch comes as the global drone market accelerates. According to Grand View Research, the market was valued at approximately $96.4 billion in 2026 and projected to reach $182.4 billion by 2033, growing at roughly a 9.5% compound annual rate, driven by AI-enabled, long-endurance platforms in agriculture, infrastructure inspection, logistics, and defense. That growth has outpaced the flight-controller market's ability to keep up: most widely used autopilots still run on general-purpose processors with no dedicated AI acceleration, leaving drone makers to bolt on a separate companion computer just to add onboard intelligence. Bluemag Pi is designed to close that gap, giving developers a single, reliable board built for both flight-critical control and AI inference.

Bluemag Pi pairs two independent inertial measurement units (IMUs), a barometer, and dual global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers with sensor-fusion software that continuously cross-checks their readings. As a result, the board produces dependable altitude, attitude, and velocity estimates even if a single sensor drifts or fails. For connectivity, the board streams telemetry to a ground station or companion computer over a standard MAVLink radio link, accepts input from common remote-control receivers, and drives motors through an integrated four-in-one electronic speed controller for precise throttle response. Additional interfaces support expansion sensors and peripherals, and onboard storage continuously logs flight data for diagnostics, tuning, and post-flight analysis.

"We chose Upbeat's Bluemag Pi flight control board over standard solutions because it's remarkably easy to integrate yet built with the real-time performance and robust feature set advanced drone development demands. That combination of dependable performance and comprehensive capabilities has made it the right platform for building sophisticated UAV solutions," said Steven Yen, Founder and CEO, Drone Dynamics.

Bluemag Pi is available as a standard board that fully supports secondary development, allowing engineers to implement their own custom flight algorithms. Alternatively, customers looking to design their own proprietary carrier boards can purchase the UP301 chip directly. With suitable hardware and firmware integration, the UP301 platform supports manual, stabilized, altitude-hold, position-hold, mission, return-to-home, and autonomous flight modes. Bluemag Pi is available for purchase now on the Upbeat Technology website.

"Flight control is one of the toughest tests for any processor architecture, hard real-time guarantees, built-in redundancy, and now onboard AI, all on a tight power budget. Leveraging both SiFive's E3 and E2 Essential RISC-V CPU IP Complexes lets Upbeat dedicate one core to flight-critical control and the other to AI and system tasks, without either one compromising the other. Bluemag Pi proves RISC-V is ready for more than edge AI, it's ready for the real-time, safety-critical systems that autonomous flight depends on," said Martyn Stroeve, Vice President, SiFive.

Upbeat will demonstrate the Bluemag Pi drone flight controller at CEATEC 2026, Japan's largest annual electronics and IT trade show, October 13–16 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba. Attendees can experience its real-time performance and onboard AI inference at booth 7H215-01. The Upbeat team will also showcase its humanoid robotic hands, headphones, and other new products. Click here to schedule a meeting at the booth. Moreover, Upbeat will also be attending TAITRONICS & AIoT Taiwan, October 20–22 at booth J0102.

Upbeat's robotics work was recognized this year with the Robot Intelligent Mobility System Excellence Award — guided by the Industrial Development Agency of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and jointly organized by the Precision Machinery Research and Development Center and the Taiwan Smart Automation and Robotics Association — for its MEMS Edge AI Module for Robot Health Monitoring and Tactile Friction Sensing, which lets equipment "hear" abnormal sounds and flag failing components before they break down, at extremely low power. Upbeat is now extending that same sensing platform beyond UAVs into humanoid robotics, demonstrating tactile and vibration sensing in robotic hands and feet that detects grip slippage, surface friction, and ground contact in real time.

About Upbeat Technology
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in New Taipei City, Taiwan, Upbeat Technology designs extreme-low-power ICs, AI accelerators, and MEMS sensors for wearables, robotics (including humanoid robotics), hearables, industrial sensing, edge AI applications, and drone flight-controller boards. Upbeat's product lines include the UP-series RISC-V SoCs with on-chip NPU/DSP acceleration and the UPM-series MEMS bone-conduction microphones. Learn more at www.upbeattechtw.com.

Media Contact
Upbeat Technology
Linda Ferguson, PR Counsel
[email protected]
www.upbeattechtw.com

SOURCE Upbeat Technology