There is no doubt that Raspberry Pi is the most popular Linux prototyping board for a wide range of fields. Depending on the project, the Pi capabilities are not endless and sometimes are needed accessories and additional tools to extend the potential of Pi.
Novio is a platform designed to extend the capabilities of Raspberry Pi by determining the position and control actuators. More than that, the Navio board is engineered for any custom robotic project or as an experimental platform for the open-source ArduPilotMega.
The idea of the board is to make the development easier for projects where is needed multiple controllers on the same platform.
The Raspberry Pi board provides access to a wide range of interfaces to connect additional hardware. One of the features of Novio is to provide access on its interface list, and if is needed, the board provides access for more accessories by using USB adapters.
As I said before, the Navio board provides data for position and orientation. For these data, the board is equipped with a 9DOF inertial measurement unit and GPS receiver. If you need pressure and temperature data, no problem, the Navio can also provide these data. In the features list are included 13 PWM outputs to control servos, 4-channel 16bit ADC, and standard (DF13) I2C, SPI, and UART ports.
In just a few words, the Navio board extends the Pi capabilities to control of all kinds of moving robots such as quadcopters, autonomous robots, cars, or boats.
This is an example how to control a drone directly from Linux with Navio