BY CRT VALENTINCIC, RED PITAYA
Modern engineering faces unprecedented complexity and rapid change. New applications are emerging across aerospace, automation, robotics, and quantum sensing. Each demands a combination of speed, flexibility, and long-term resilience.
Closed, proprietary hardware stacks are unable to keep pace with these evolving requirements.
In contrast, open (and developer-friendly) ecosystems — where designs and firmware are transparent, modular, and shareable — enable much faster development cycles, more avenues for customization, and lower risk. In short, these open ecosystems are essential for modern R&D.
Maximizing efficiency
RISC-V is an open-source instruction set architecture that is used to develop custom processors for a range of applications. It illustrates the speed and flexibility that open architectures enable. Critically, its open instruction set allows users, primarily companies, to test and deploy processor designs without licensing delays or fees. This alone enables users to avoid months of legal negotiations and significantly shorten timelines. Proprietary cores, on the other hand, still require opaque licensing, long approval chains, and costly support agreements.
This flexibility of open-source hardware has spurred its adoption on a global scale. Projects in the EU, such as the EuroHPC DARE initiative, fund RISC-V to reduce dependency on non-European intellectual property. Major suppliers are transitioning future families to RISC-V to tailor chips for software-defined vehicles. And in China, leading chip firms have launched patent alliances to rapidly scale RISC-V development. For these governments and enterprises, the inherent openness of these systems enables autonomy.
The same general principle applies beyond silicon. Affordable, developer-friendly platforms with open-source software, for example, 3D-printed robot parts, shared arm designs, or Arduino-based controllers, enable teams to iterate quickly without waiting for custom prototypes. Academic studies show that platforms like Raspberry Pi can serve as low-cost controllers in mobile robotics, enabling innovation even in resource-constrained environments. In test and measurement, meanwhile, platforms such as Red Pitaya’s STEMlab offer a compact alternative to traditional lab instruments. Engineers can prototype complex control systems or data acquisition setups at a fraction of the usual cost. A fully inspectable and modifiable design makes this possible.
Red Pitaya STEMlab 125-14. The small, lightweight footprint of Red Pitaya's STEMlab lets engineers integrate full acquisition systems into spaces where traditional lab hardware cannot fit. Courtesy of Red Pitaya.
From theory to reality
Efficiencies such as these, across different sectors and facets of modern engineering, can be found in real world applications and are more than theoretical. Automaker BMW, for example, uses Arduino ecosystems extensively in its R&D teams for rapid prototyping across sensor, actuator, and processor units. The Arduino ecosystem enables the company to test and iterate on new automotive concepts with speed and flexibility that closed platforms cannot match. In essence, Arduino bridges the gap between sensors, actuators, and CPUs.
As is to be expected, use cases are expansive and diverse. In music tech, the instrument manufacturer Korg integrates the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 into synthesizers. The modularity and power of Pi modules help solve specific digital signal processing and integration challenges while reducing production costs. And in AgTech, FarmBot built its crowdfunded precision farming system using Arduino-based controls. The final platform, Farmduino, automates watering, planting, and weeding — scaling from prototype to production while maintaining full transparency and user adaptation.
Fundamentally, reusing open modules and standards leads teams to spend more time on real innovation and less on reinventing basic blocks. Per a recent analysis of quantum technology1, hardware and software toolkits, built on open principles, can spread best practices across a given field. In fact, the study authors concluded that more open quantum hardware could accelerate technology transfer and increase accessibility in science. Opening designs to the community multiplies engineering effort rather than simply duplicating it.
Developer-friendly hardware platforms let teams move quickly from concept to functional prototypes, without expensive custom electronics. Courtesy of Red Pitaya.
Finding the benefits
Platforms with open-source software give engineers the flexibility to adapt systems for their exact needs. Closed systems force them to fit the design to the vendor’s mold, or to absorb expensive nonrecurring engineering costs. When cores and boards are open, companies can tweak them freely.
Moreover, open ecosystems foster deep hardware-software co-design. The Open Compute Project (OCP), initiated by Meta (Facebook, at the time) rethinks data center infrastructure by openly sharing server, storage, and networking designs. Its community-led model allows companies to collaboratively optimize power, thermal management, and performance at scale. By eliminating proprietary constraints, OCP has helped hyperscalers and enterprises reduce energy usage and hardware costs, while accelerating the deployment of AI and edge workloads.
Sometimes, benefits and outcomes do not emerge until projects mature; proprietary hardware often becomes a risk as projects grow and time passes. If a vendor discontinues a chip, or goes out of business, customers can be stuck with broken — and unfixable — products. Open platforms avoid this vendor lock-in trap. When source designs and firmware are public, any organization can maintain or evolve them. The Libre Space Foundation gives a good example: it designed UPSat, the first fully open-hardware CubeSat to reach orbit. By open-sourcing both hardware and software, UPSat’s makers enabled a community of researchers to inspect and reuse their satellite technology. This openness means future CubeSat projects won’t be stranded by proprietary black boxes.
A transformation underway
Across aerospace, industrial automation, quantum sensing, and beyond, the evidence is clear: Open hardware ecosystems and developer-friendly platforms with open-source software deliver real business and technical advantages. Faster time-to-market, more innovation per dollar, lower development risk, and longer useful lifetimes are within reach. The present innovation surge mirrors how open-source initiatives transformed software decades ago. Now, closed, proprietary models simply cannot match this collective momentum.
For engineering executives and CTOs, the takeaway is strategic. Adopting open hardware is not a fringe choice but a necessity for staying competitive. It enables teams to pivot as requirements shift and ensures investments endure through evolving standards.
In an era when agility and sustainability matter more than ever, openness is the only viable path to sustaining innovation. Embracing open hardware and firmware now means R&D organizations, across the optics and photonics industries as well as in other areas, will build on a foundation of community-driven progress: a foundation that outlasts any single vendor and powers the breakthroughs of tomorrow.
Reference
1) N. Shammah et al. (2024). Open Hardware Solutions in Quantum Technology. arXiv:2309.17233v2, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.17233.
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