Hi @Maw -
Welcome to the forums!
There isn’t a target launch date for the Navigator rev yet, but hopefully it will be in Q2 or Q3 this year.
In the meantime, you can use the existing Navigator with the Pi 5 and the latest BlueOS 1.4 beta versions, but expect to need to disable one of the magnetometers (done under Vehicle Setup / Configuration / Compass), as the stock cooler fan is positioned very close to it and will keep it from being calibrated / used.
Hi, is there any updates regarding Navigator R1?
Hi Tony,
Any updates about a possible launch date for the updated Navigator?
Thank you
Hi @Maw -
That launch date has gotten tied up with some other, related updates to the BlueROV2, based on our thorough testing with Pi5 hardware. It turns out that the Pi5 is much more sensitive to its 5V power supply (prefers 5.1V) and so an update to the power module, which includes an external ROV on/off switch, is required as well. High quality, robust solutions are never as easy or simple to invent as you’d hope!
Hi,
Any news about a planned date for the updated components? (power module and navigator)
Thank you
Hi @tony-white
I’m researching before making a custom ROV in the near future based on Raspberry 5
Do you have any news or even better a planned date for the updated Bluerobotics power module and navigator that you mentioned some months ago? 
Thank you
Hi @Maw -
No updates! Sorry for the news. Iteration takes time, particularly with circuitboards!
At what stage is Navigator FC for Raspberry Pi 5? Is there a planned release date, or is the project wrapping up?
Hi @sheva -
If I recall correctly, changes to the Navigator necessary to support the Pi 5 have already been made - what has not been released yet is a heatsink compatible with the Pi 5 and Navigator, that provides a fan, allowing the unit to run without het issues in a BlueROV2 enclosure. There are some other components tied up in the project that will release with that, and we don’t yet have a release date as a result.
I’m currently interested in upgrading our Blue Boat with a pi 5 8gb as it seems to struggle under heavy usage with 2gb on the pi 4. Would it be possible to do this upgrade with the navigator board that is currently in the blue boats? I am not currently using the internal/stock magnetometers for navigation so I’d be fine with disabling those. Alternatively would you recommend upgrading to the pi 4 8gb instead?
Our eventual plan would be to integrate either some form of stereo camera system or lidar for topside surveying and navigation as well. A separate computer on board may be an eventual necessity but until then I’d like to get the best performance we can out of the onboard computer.
In your opinion would upgrading the onboard computer either to a pi 5 or the pi 4 8gb make an appreciable difference? Thank you very much!
Hi @Randomguy22 -
I don’t think an update to the Pi 5 would help you! Are you running other applications besides the standard autopilot? What version of BlueOS?
The system typically uses appreciably less than 30% of the Pi resources… Can you describe what symptoms you perceive as “struggling” ? What size SD card are you using? Your external navigation is setup to send NMEA at 10Hz, directly to the autopilot (not using NMEA bridge?)
ArduRover already has some support for obstacle avoidance…
I’d guess your issues are more related to the quality of your radio link, or a minimal amount of free space on your SD card…
I’m currently using two instances of sonarview (one for multi beam surveying and another for side scan). The issue only really presents itself when I’m trying to record channel data at 20 Hz. We are also currently using a high endurance 256 gb sd card. I’m currently running BlueOS 1.4.3 I believe. I haven’t been able to take it out on the water since I’ve updated it due to the river being completely frozen over for several weeks.
Navigation hasn’t been the issue. It handles that no issue. My main concern was just adding more load to it in the future.
The radio connection could be a major factor as well because the environment I’m using it in is filled with interference and obstacles (barges, tow boats, crane etc. ). I’ve tried to limit those as much as possible but there is only so much that can be moved.
Hi @Randomguy22 -
That sounds like your 256gb SD card does not have sufficiently fast write speed! Is it Class 10 or better? If you (temporarily) update to the latest beta 1.5, there is a SD card speed test tool in the left BlueOS menu… if you run this, please share a screenshot of the results!
Assuming you’re using the extension version of SonarView, there is no need to view the data live, if recording is active. The preview does consume significant bandwidth, and if you have a poor connection the display may not update, or do so in bursts - this won’t affect the recorded data at all! Newer versions of SonarView have much better compression of the data, so the 256gb capacity may be overkill? I’d say starting your sonar sessions recording, and then only observing one at a time would be the best use of your connection!
@tony-white Thank you for the quick response! The card I have is indeed a class 10. Your solution is probably what I’m going to do going forward. I wasn’t sure if it was a ram issue or a bandwidth issue and I cannot easily test it for a few more days due to high water. It being a bandwidth issue would make more sense.
Hi @tony-white
Any news about a possible ETA for the updated Bluerobotics power module and navigator that you mentioned before? More than one year has passed
Thank you
Hi everyone,
I’m trying to get a Blue Robotics Navigator running on a Raspberry Pi 5, but I’m running into an ArduPilot startup issue that looks related to Raspberry Pi device-tree / board detection. I’m using RPi 5 with 8 RAM on the 64-bit image, aarch64. I’ve tested it BlueOS 1.4.3 and 1.5.37-beta with stable and latest ardusub (ArduPilot firmware : /Sub/stable/navigator64).
BlueOS appears to detect the Navigator correctly and tries to start ardupilot_navigator64. However, ArduPilot exits before producing a MAVLink heartbeat. When I run the binary manually, I get:
Cannot detect board-type
Unknown rpi_version, cannot locate peripheral base address
The Pi itself identifies correctly:
$ grep -E "Model" /proc/cpuinfo
Model : Raspberry Pi 5 Model B Rev 1.0
But this command returns no ranges nodes:
find /proc/device-tree -maxdepth 3 -name ranges -print
So it looks like ArduPilot is unable to locate the expected Raspberry Pi peripheral base from the device tree on this setup. Has anyone successfully run Navigator + ArduSub on RPi5, or seen this cannot locate peripheral base address error? Is there a known workaround, required kernel/device-tree setting, or patched ArduPilot build for this case?
Some logs, that may be useful for those interested:
2026-06-16 09:11:45.300 | INFO | flight_controller_detector.linux.detector:detect_boards:24 - Detected Linux board: NavigatorPi5
2026-06-16 09:11:45.305 | WARNING | autopilot_manager:start_ardupilot:575 - More than a single board detected: [NavigatorPi5(name='Navigator64', manufacturer='Blue Robotics', platform=<Platform.Navigator64: 'navigator64'>, path=None, flags=[], devices={'ADS1115': (72, 1), 'AK09915': (12, 1), 'BME280': (118, 1), 'PCA9685': (64, 3)}), FlightController(name='SITL', manufacturer='ArduPilot Team', platform=<Platform.SITL: 'SITL_arm_linux_gnueabihf'>, path=None, flags=[])]
2026-06-16 09:11:45.306 | INFO | autopilot_manager:start_ardupilot:578 - Using Navigator64 flight-controller.
2026-06-16 09:11:45.312 | DEBUG | firmware.FirmwareInstall:_validate_elf:102 - firm_board: BoardType.LINUX, firm_sub_board: BoardSubType.LINUX_NAVIGATOR, current_decoder_platform: BoardSubType.LINUX_NAVIGATOR
2026-06-16 09:11:45.315 | INFO | autopilot_manager:start_linux_board:332 - Using command line: '/root/.config/ardupilot-manager/firmware/ardupilot_navigator64 -A udp:127.0.0.1:8852 --log-directory /root/.config/ardupilot-manager/firmware/logs/ --storage-directory /root/.config/ardupilot-manager/firmware/storage/ -C /dev/ttyAMA0 -B /dev/ttyAMA2 -E /dev/ttyAMA3 -F /dev/ttyAMA4 --defaults /usr/blueos/userdata/firmware/ardupilot_navigator64params.params'
2026-06-16 09:11:45.315 | DEBUG | mavlink_proxy.AbstractRouter:start:99 - Calling router using following command: '/usr/bin/mavlink-server udps:127.0.0.1:8852 udps:127.0.0.1:14001 udpc:192.168.2.1:14550 zenoh:0.0.0.0:7117 tcps:127.0.0.1:5777 udps:0.0.0.0:14660 udpc:127.0.0.1:14000'.
2026-06-16 09:11:48.341 | DEBUG | commonwealth.mavlink_comm.MavlinkComm:get_most_recent_vehicle_id:104 - no vehicle ID detected - using default (1)
2026-06-16 09:11:48.341 | INFO | commonwealth.mavlink_comm.MavlinkComm:set_system_id:28 - system_id set to: 1
2026-06-16 09:11:48.342 | WARNING | autopilot_manager:kill_ardupilot:549 - Could not disarm vehicle: Received empty response. Proceeding with kill.
2026-06-16 09:11:48.342 | INFO | autopilot_manager:kill_ardupilot:553 - Terminating Ardupilot subprocess.
2026-06-16 09:11:48.342 | INFO | autopilot_manager:terminate_ardupilot_subprocess:514 - Ardupilot subprocess terminated.
2026-06-16 09:11:48.342 | INFO | autopilot_manager:kill_ardupilot:555 - Ardupilot subprocess terminated.
2026-06-16 09:11:48.342 | INFO | autopilot_manager:kill_ardupilot:556 - Pruning Ardupilot's system processes.
2026-06-16 09:11:48.376 | INFO | autopilot_manager:kill_ardupilot:558 - Ardupilot's system processes pruned.
2026-06-16 09:11:48.376 | INFO | autopilot_manager:kill_ardupilot:560 - Stopping Mavlink manager.
2026-06-16 09:11:48.376 | WARNING | mavlink_proxy.AbstractRouter:exit:118 - Terminating process
2026-06-16 09:11:48.377 | WARNING | mavlink_proxy.AbstractRouter:exit:120 - Termination done
2026-06-16 09:11:49.359 | ERROR | commonwealth.mavlink_comm.VehicleManager:get_firmware_info:87 - Failed to request autopilot version. Received empty response
$ ./ardupilot_navigator64 \
-A udp:127.0.0.1:8852 \
--log-directory /root/.config/ardupilot-manager/firmware/logs/ \
--storage-directory /root/.config/ardupilot-manager/firmware/storage/ \
-C /dev/ttyAMA0 \
-B /dev/ttyAMA2 \
-E /dev/ttyAMA3 \
-F /dev/ttyAMA4 \
--defaults /usr/blueos/userdata/firmware/ardupilot_navigator64params.params
Cannot detect board-type
Unknown rpi_version, cannot locate peripheral base address
Thanks!
HI @juliusz-nosun ,
Have you installed it using the install script? While we’re experiencing some issues right now, we have some pi5 images generated already.
Hi @williangalvani, thanks for fast response.
You’re asking about the host system, not the BlueOS docker container or the autopilot? I’m using an image I installed a few months ago (probably in February), which I’ve simply updated to the specified versions of BlueOS. I don’t remember the details, but I assume I installed it following the instructions, using Balena Etcher.
It looks as though I’ve got a kernel from May, so perhaps I’ve updated the system.
$ uname -a
Linux blueos 6.12.87+rpt-rpi-2712 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.87-1+rpt1~bookworm (2026-05-12) aarch64 GNU/Linux
I’ll install a fresh system and check whether the problem persists.
I wasn’t able to reinstall the entire system from scratch. The Navigator worked on a different SD card running Bookworm and BlueOS 1.4.3. Judging by the dates on the log files, I installed it a month ago, in mid-May. I don’t know what the difference is between the systems – I assume that on the version I described in the post above, I ran `apt update`.
So, I can confirm that Navigator works with the RPi 5.