Holybro Shrinks the Pixhawk with the New, Compact Pixhawk 6C Mini Flight Controller

Holybro has announced the latest entry in its Pixhawk family of flight controllers, the compact Pixhawk 6C Mini — designed for those who are after the bulk of the features found in the Pixhawk 6C but who need a smaller and lighter design.

The Pixhawk 6C Mini is, as the name suggests, a more compact alternative to the Pixhawk 6C the company launched last year. It's based on the same STMicro STM32H743 microcontroller with an Arm Cortex-M7 core running at up to 480MHz, 1MB RAM, and 2MB of flash. There are redundant inertial measurement units (IMUs), as with its bigger sibling, and an integrated vibration isolation system.

The changes, then, are largely external. The Pixhawk 6C Mini is, as you'd expect, smaller than the Pixhawk 6C, and that size is felt primarily in the loss of several ports: the Power 2, Telem3, SBUS Out, IO Debug, JST-GH USB, and channels seven and eight of the pulse-width modulation (PWM) outputs are all gone. The PWM output, too, has changed: in the Pixhawk 6C the PWM outputs were brought out to separate breakout boards, but the Mini variant has a built-in PWM header instead.

Despite these changes, the new controller is based on the same Pixhawk FMUv6C open standard and uses the same connectors for the headers which remain in the redesign — meaning it should be a drop-in option for anyone wanting to reduce the weight and size of their next drone project.

The Pixhawk 6C Mini is now available on the Holybro website, starting at $191.99 with no bundled power module or GPS receiver.