3D Robotics Releases New Free & Open DroneKit App Platform

North America’s largest personal drone company, 3D Robotics (3DR), has announced the release of DroneKit, an SDK and web API (powered by 3scale) which will be free and open to developers. Now you can easily create apps and new functions for 3DR vehicles, and get your drone set up in minutes rather than days. Developers can create mobile, web-based, and even onboard computer apps. DroneKit is also “vehicle agnostic,” meaning it works for 3DR’s planes, copters, and rovers.

“DroneKit abstracts away the hard parts of writing flight control software, leaving you a clean, modern interface to code on.”

With this new app platform, 3DR has lowered the barrier of entry. We can expect to see drone users creating apps that fit more specific use cases. For example, this will make it easier for 3DR’s drones to be used for very specific industrial purposes – in addition to awesome toys and hacks – think agriculture apps to survey land, search and rescue apps, or even football practice apps. It will be exciting to see what people come up with to put 3DR’s vehicles to work in new ways.

DroneKit has been years in the making, based on research and development from thousands of contributors. It already powers some of the most successful flight control programs such as flight planning mobile app Tower (formerly Droidplanner), global social network for drone pilots Droneshare, Project Tango Indoor Navigation, and the IMSI/Design TurboSite aerial reporting app for construction.

DroneKit is truly free and open to use. Unlike other drone-related APIs, there are no levels of access to worry about so you can start playing with it right away. Check out the 3DR’s DroneKit developer portal to get API keys or more information.