Xplorer CM5 – Waterproof Rugged Industrial Edge IoT/AIoT Controller & Embedded Mission Computer – Raspberry PI CM5 & Hailo AI Ecosystems

Xplorer CM5 are a familly of products. They can be used when reliability is not an option for IIoT, AIoT & Edge Gateways or Controllers for Smart, Connected Automation and Supervision but also as Embedded Mission Computers for Sea, Air & Land Intelligent Mobility in harsh environment.

Ready from short-range connectivity with Matter to remote locations connectivity with Direct To Cell (Starlink in LTE Bands or AST SpaceMobile in 5G Bands) or NB-IoT NTN (Skylo, OQ, Sateliot, Iridium Stardust…). Future proof with More powerfull AI accelerator (Hailo-10H), Embedded AI agents to automate tasks, manage or search through data (n8n, mcp)  …

Download the XPLORER CM5 Family Sales Brochure
Download the XPLORER CM5 FLEX Brief Sheet (OEM Version)
Look up the Xplorer CM5 FLEX online Datasheet
Look up the Xplorer CM5 FLEX Software Tutorial

Benefit from an uncompromising design :

• SWaP-C Optimization: Cost-effective, industrial, rugged, waterproof and dustproof, wide temperature range, miniaturized, very lightweight, very low power consumption, fanless…
• Industrial, Marine, Vehicle, Drone field connectivity:
  – M12 connectors compatible with cost-effective off-the-shelf cables (Industrial GbE, NMEA2000, CANopen, DeviceNet…)
  – Industrial Gigabit LAN Ready for IP Camera, Modbus TCP, Profinet, ETherNet/IP, BACnet, OPC-UA, MQTT, DDS, Websocket, ZMQ, UDP, TCP, NMEA OneNet…
  – Multiples CANbus FD, RS232, RS485, Modbus, some with galvanic isolation, Digital and Analog I/O.
  – And more connectivity using internal M.2 expansions or external industrial interfaces :
  • IO-Link Master Profinet interface : IFM AL1100 + CODESYS
  • EtherCAT : Beckhoff BK1120 Bus Coupler + CODESYS
• Best in class wireless connectivity capability: 2G, 3G, 3GPP NTN, 4G, 5G, 5G Redcap, A-GPS, ANT+, BDS, Beidou, BLE, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Mesh, CAT-M1, CAT-NB2, DC-HSPA+, EDGE, EGNOS, GAGAN, GALILEO, GLONASS, GPS, GPS XTRA, GPRS, GSM, HSDPA, HSPA+, HSUPA, NB-IoT NTN, LoRa, LoRaWAN, LTE, NB-IoT, NGFF, Matter, MSAS, QZSS, RFID, RTK, SDR, SigFox, SouthPAN, Thread, UMTS, WAAS, WiGig, WiFi, Wifi Halow, Zigbee
  Ready for upcoming Satellite communication using a small antenna : Non-Terrestrial Network Direct To Cell (Starlink) or NB-IoT NTN (Skylo).
• Best in class flexibility: Versatile and scalable through various M.2 modules, you can use a single hardware and software base for multiple projects.
• Best in class community support: Software support, OS and frameworks compatibility…
• Best in class AI Power Efficiency: 3 TOPS/W with the Hailo 8 TPU now and 11.4 TOPS/W expected with the Hailo-10H TPU
• Cybersecurity : Your data are protected with a TPM2.0 secure cryptoprocessor.

One product line, A huge versatility, Ulimited Possibilities

Installed near antennas, sensors and actuators, in a noisy or hostile environment or in an unmanned platform, Xplorer products are intented for a Web, Remote or voice HMI and can be used with or without AI, Storage, Wireless or Positioning options. Its powerfull AI can analyze tirelessly several IP normal, thermal or depth cameras, LIDARs, Radars or Sonars imaging at the same time. It is design to Professional, Scientific, Defence industry, Academic project, Sailor and AI Geek in in two main areas:

1) Smart, Connected Automation and Supervision :

• Industry 4.0, Energy, Mining, Oil & Gas: Machine Automation, PLC/Cloud Gateway, Overall Equipement Effectiveness, Predictive Maintenance, Smart Quality control….
• City Infrastructure Management: Parking, Lighting, Occupancy Detection, Traffic control, Pedestrian Safety, Population Flow, Air/Water/Noise quality monitoring, Waste…
• Building, Ship: Automation, Voice Assistant, Energy, Safety, Security, Fire Control, Climate Control, HVAC, NAS…
• Wildfire Detection: Smart smoke or thermal surveillance
• Farming: Smart supervision & automation for Animals & Plants
• Store: Smart thief surveillance
• Medical, Independence Assistance: Smart supervision & automation for Hospital bed, Handicap, Physical or mental loss of autonomy…
• Sport: Electronic referee, Statistics
• Big Data Collection: Site survey, Data+Video Recorder for AI training, Ocean Science (Survey, Buoy…)
• DIY & Academic:
  • Residential, Boat, RV: Smart surveillance and automation using Frigate AI/NVR + Home Assistant + Node-Red + a voice assistant
  • Education: ROS2, Node-Red, TensorFlow, OpenPLC… learning

2) Sea, Air & land Intelligent Mobility :

Provide intelligence and connectivity to Boats, RVs, Unmanned Vehicles (UAV, USV, AUV), Robots, Buoys, Special Vehicles, Farming & Mining vehicles, Offshore Energy, Oil & Gaz systems…

• Boat Assistant, RV Assistant: Automation (Home Assistant), AI CAMs Intrusion Alarm/Parking/Docking/Automation (Frigate NVR)
• Mobile Router-Gateway: WIFI/4G/5G/Starlink DTC Router + Field bus & Wireless IoT Gateway
• Software-Defined Vehicle: AI Detection, Obstacle Avoidance, Navigation, ML Control-Command…
• Marine Mission Computer: True Wind Calculation, Sails automation, Obstacle Avoidance, Smart Autopilot, Foiler Flight Control System, MultiFunction Display gateway…
• Consumable Military Hardware: ITAR-free Training target, Decoy, Drone…
• Voyage/Flight Data Recorder for non IMO ship, unmanned vehicle, rental vehicle
• Tracking: Cloud gateway, Race tracker…
• Human Attentivness Control of Driver, Pilot, Skipper…
• DIY Marine Computer: Open Plotter platform for sailors

Non-Terrestrial Data. Your Data Here, There, Everywhere

Xplorer products are ready for upcoming new kind of satellite communication for IoT and AIoT, like Non-Terrestrial Network Skylo NB-IoT NTN or Direct To Cell Starlink DTC.
Requiring only a small antenna and low energy, it will enable low-cost real-time communication with ships, planes, land vehicles, isolated installations and all kinds of unmanned systems.

Best in class wireless connectivity capability

Depending on the optional internal modules, the Xplorer product can support (or is ready) for some of the following communications: 2G, 3G, 4G LTE, 5G Redcap, 5G NR, A-GPS, ANT+, BDS, Beidou, BLE, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Mesh, CAT-M1, CAT-NB2, DC-HSPA+, EDGE, EGNOS, GAGAN, GALILEO, GLONASS, GPS, GPS XTRA, GPRS, GSM, HSDPA, HSPA+, HSUPA, IoT-NTN, LoRa, LoRaWAN, LTE, NB-IoT, NGFF, Matter, MSAS, QZSS, RFID, RTK, SDR, SigFox, Skylo, SouthPAN, Starlink DTC, Starlink IoT, Thread, UMTS, WAAS, WiGig, WiFi, Wifi Halow, Zigbee

Click Here for details (Soldered & M.2 modules, Protocols, Bands, Performance, Testing status)

When Ubiquity and scalability meet miniaturization

With its exceptional modularity (3x M.2 modules, 1x CPU module, 2x LPWAN multiprotocol modules), you can tailor the hardware to your needs :

Hardware Specifications

Specifications FAQ

Why there is no uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or Supercapacitor and how to do without one ?
A UPS adds cost and volume to the product, but above all to maintenance when a battery needs to be replaced in a sealed product. The solution adopted in the industry and consumer products is a 3-partition solution:

• One read-only partition with Linux and your application (e.g. EMMC)
• A small EXT4 partition for current data logging (e.g. in the SDD)
• A large EXT4 partition for archiving data logs (e.g. in the same SDD)

The power failure management software is replaced by software that periodically copies the current data log to the archive data log.
After a power failure, when Linux restarts, if needed it repairs the small partition very quickly, which would take a long time with an entire disk which may be unacceptable for certain applications.

Why there is no default RTC battery ?
It is possible to add a rechargeable battery as an option, but we do not recommend this choice due to high maintenance costs when it is possible to retrieve the time via GNSS or the Internet at startup.

Why is it not PCIe 3.0 compatible ?
This was a conscious decision:

• The Raspberry Pi Foundation does not guarantee PCIe 3.0 functionality.
• For non-AI applications, the bottleneck is 1 Gb/s Ethernet, not 5 GT/s PCIe 2.0.
• For AI applications with the Hailo-8L and 8, it is true that there is a loss of performance in PCIe 2.0, but this will be not the case with the Hailo-10H, which consumes only 2.5W typ. and integrates up to 8 GB of DDR. This avoids resource and energy-intensive transfers between the TPU and CPU, reduce CM5, PCIe Switch and enclosure cost.
• A PCIe 3.0 switch adds 30$ to the BOM and near 2W to the power consumption.

Which Cellular modem to choose for Direct-To-Cell ?
Starlink claims to be compatible with all legacy LTE devices compliant with 3GPP Rel 10 or later (the installed 4G LTE modem is 3GPP Rel 12), but it must still be authorized to use LTE bands in all countries, this may not be the case in in some countries where the n25 band is being discussed. Future competitors such as AST SpaceMobile, OneWeb, Amazon LEO, etc. may use 5G NTN channels. AST Mobile has requested authorization for 5G channels (n25 and n26). Depending on your application, it is therefore more prudent today to choose a 5G RedCap modem compatible with 3GPP Rel 17 or later and with a LTE Fallback in order to be truly certain of a global and all providers compatibility.

OS and framework Compatibility

OS	Debian 13 Headless/Desktop PREEMPT-RT Ubuntu 25.04 Core/Server/Desktop PREEMPT-RT (Ubuntu 25.10 will propose TPM2.0 disk encryption) On request : Buildroot, Yocto, OpenWrt, BalenaOS, Redpesk Marine Grade Linux, Victron Energy Venus OS, Automotive Grade Linux (AGL),  Automotive EB corbos Linux
OTA Update & Cybersecurity	Zymbit bootware, Mender, Balena, Fwupd, Rauc
Robotic	ROS2, MOOS-IvP…
PLC/SCADA	CoDeSys, OpenPLC, Ignition Edge…
Home/building Automation	Frigate NVR, Home Assistant, Jeedom, ioBrooker…
IoT	MQTT, Node-Red, InfluxDB, Grafana…
AI	Hailo, Keras, TensorFlow, YOLOv11, PyCoral, PyTorch, ONNX… Zero Training : YOLOE, Speech Recognition: Whisper
AI Agent	n8n, MCP, node-red-mcp-server, MCP servers
Marine	Node-Red based : Datalog, Cloud, NMEA2000, Wind-calculation, Autopilot, Flight Control System (Contact us)
NAS	OpenMediaVault

Software support

Xplorer github

Configure your product

Xplorer CM5 FLEX most common configurations :

Configuration

Core

LoRa

Matter

Core+

Matter+

Edge

IIoT

RTK

Frigate

AIoT

AIoT+

VDR / NAS

AC75

Typical Applications

Gateway, Automation

Gateway, Automation

Home Assistant

Gateway, Automation

Home Assistant

Mobile Router, 4G & LTE Direct To Cell

Mobile Computer, 5G & 5G NTN Direct To Cell

Geophysics, Farming, Drones

Frigate, NVR, Home Assistant

Smart Mobile computer, 4G & LTE Direct To Cell

Smart Mobile Computer, 5G & 5G NTN Direct To Cell

Voyage / Video Data Recorder, NAS

America Cup (no WiFi option)

RAM/eMMC

4/16 GB

4/16GB

4/16GB

8/32GB

8/32GB

8/32GB

8/32GB

8/32GB

8/32GB

8/32GB

16/64GB

8/32GB

16/64GB

LPWAN

–

LoRa

Matter

–

Matter

–

–

–

Matter

–

–

–

–

1st M.2-M

–

–

–

256GB

256GB

256GB

256GB

256GB

1TB

256GB

512GB

1TB

1TB

M.2-B

–

–

–

–

–

LTE-A + GNSS

5G RC + GNSS

GNSS-RTK

–

LTE-A + GNSS

5G RC + GNSS

–

–

2nd M.2-M

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

NPU 13 TOPS

NPU 13 TOPS

NPU 26 TOPS

1TB

1TB

RTC Battery

–

–

–

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Eclosure Base

Carbon

Carbon

Carbon

Carbon

Carbon

Carbon

Carbon

Carbon

Aluminum heat sink

Aluminum heat sink

Aluminum heat sink

Carbon

Carbon

Weight

224g

227g

227g

226g

229g

248g

251g

250g

TDB

TDB

TDB

236g

236g

Available

Pre-Prod

Pre-Prod

Q1 2026

Pre-Prod

Q1 2026

Pre-Prod

Pre-Prod

Q1 2026

Q1 2026

Pre-Prod

Pre-Prod

Pre-Prod

Pre-Prod

This product can be sold for prototyping or in volume, board only and can be tailored to your needs (RAM, eMMC, SSD Size/endurance, Cellular type and region, LPWAN type and region, AI, GNSS…). We can also provide the cables and antennas.

Austral Electronics is a design office, if you have a series of products, we can:

• Adapt the enclosure to your brand or project : colors, CNC logo, silkscreen, mounting…
• Reduce costs by eliminating unnecessary functionalities
• Help you in software: Embedded computing, Datalogger/Cloud, N2K, Control-command, Linux distribution, OTA update…
• Support you on your specific needs in electronics (advice on technological choices, Design a M.2 module in order to add additional features, design a similar product…)

Custom enclosure examples :

Peripherals

Ethernet, M12 and SMA connectors are compatible with cost-effective off-the-shelf cables, antennas, industrial/marine Ethernet/Onenet switch and GbE POE cameras. We can supply them, please contact us.

Product Status

Model		Xplorer CM5
Introduction		Q2 2025
Life Cycle Phase		Pre Production
EOL		Jan 2036

Pricing & Ordering

Read the XPLORER CM5 FLEX Datasheet to build your part number and select optional accessories.

Or send us an email