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Ukrainian Firm Builds 6-Tonne Cruise Missile Using Open-Source Drone Autopilot
Fire Point unveiled the FP-5 Flamingo at the Eurosatory expo in Paris last month. The 6-tonne missile relies on an Ardupilot controller common in hobby drones. New Scientist reported the design achieves greater range and payload than a Tomahawk at lower cost.
Jul 17, 6:00 AM·1m read1 source
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Fire Point, a Ukrainian company, developed the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile that incorporates an open-source Ardupilot flight controller typically used in consumer drones. The company displayed the weapon at the Eurosatory defence expo in Paris last month.
The 6-tonne missile can carry a warhead twice as heavy as a Tomahawk cruise missile and fly twice the distance while costing a fraction as much.
It uses sensor data from the Ardupilot system to maintain stable flight along its assigned path. Ardupilot is an open-source software suite first released in 2009 that runs on hardware costing less than $100. Drone hobbyists apply it to multicopters, model aircraft, boats and ground vehicles.
Fire Point CTO Iryna Terekh stated that open-source software offers independence because it does not come from a company that may go out of business or be blocked from exporting to Ukraine. A community of thousands of engineers quickly finds and resolves bugs in the software.
Roy Gardiner of Defense Tech for Ukraine said the use of open-source Ardupilot aligns with Fire Point’s philosophy of rapidly providing effective long-range strike at a vastly lower cost than exquisite Western designs.
He noted that Ardupilot is one of the world’s most extensively tested autopilots. Ukraine’s fleet of small drones largely runs on open-source flight controllers such as Betaflight, Ardupilot and PX4. Russia’s Shahed attack drones use commercial electronics, including a Raspberry Pi 4 processor with AI software in the newer Seeker version, according to Ukrainian drone expert Serhii Beskrestnov.
