Lantronix Unveils Robotics Platform Spotter To Provide Drone And Robot Makers The Onboard Compute, Sensing And Vehicle Control To Run Autonomy

Lantronix is previewing Spotter this week at AUSA 2026 in Washington, D.C., with availability in the fourth quarter of calendar 2026.

Autonomy has become the defining requirement for unmanned systems, as operators manage more vehicles at once and coordinated swarms move from demonstrations to deployment. Yet a gap in the compute market has left builders with two poor options: low-end embedded boards that can’t run meaningful AI, or GPU platforms whose cost, power and size make little sense for small, often attritable vehicles. Too many autonomy programs stall in that gap. Spotter was built to close it.

Powered by the Qualcomm® Dragonwing™ QCS6490, Spotter delivers up to 12.5 TOPS of AI performance at single digit watts on a 42 x 120 mm board. Unlike general-purpose development kits, it is engineered for drones and mobile robots, combining AI, vision, flight-grade sensing and vehicle control on one board. It retrofits into existing aerial, ground and maritime platforms or anchors new designs, supports PX4, ArduPilot, Betaflight and MAVLink, and leaves customers in full control of their own autonomy and mission software. Built on the Lantronix Open-Q™ 6490 system on module and backed by Lantronix unmanned systems engineering services, Spotter gives OEMs a production-ready path from prototype to fielded fleet. Spotter builds on a track record defense programs already trust, with Lantronix compute flying today in Blue UAS–approved drones.