ARK Electronics ARKV6X-RT — NDAA-Compliant i.MX RT1176 Flight Controller

Specifications

Overview

The ARKV6X-RT is an open-standards flight controller from ARK Electronics built around the NXP i.MX RT1176, a crossover MCU combining a 1GHz Cortex-M7 core with a 400MHz Cortex-M4. It implements the FMUV6X-RT and Pixhawk Autopilot Bus (PAB) open standards and is offered as NDAA-compliant hardware, which is the differentiator for defence, public-sector and NDAA-gated procurement.

The RT1176 has no internal code flash, so the board executes from a 64MB octal NOR device on FlexSPI1 with PX4 using the first 4MB. PX4 Autopilot is the supported stack; PX4 documentation notes that the Cortex-M4 core is currently unused. Parameter storage is handled by an FM25V02A FRAM, and an NXP EdgeLock SE051 secure element provides hardware key storage and attestation.

Sensor redundancy is the core safety argument: three IMUs sit on separate SPI buses, each with its own power rail and data-ready line - an InvenSense ICM-45686 as the primary, an InvenSense IIM-20670 for navigation and fallback, and an ST LSM6DSV80X publishing its +/-16g accelerometer channel (its +/-80g high-g element is not used). A Bosch BMP390 barometer and ST IIS2MDC magnetometer complete the suite, and a 1W heater keeps the sensing cluster at a stable temperature.

Key Benefits

NDAA-compliant open-standards design, triple synchronized IMUs on isolated buses for redundancy, EdgeLock SE051 secure element and FRAM parameter storage, and PX4 Autopilot compatibility for existing toolchains.

Applications

UAS and drone autopilot design, NDAA-gated defence and public-sector programmes, research and university flight platforms, and PX4-based autonomy development.

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