Systems // Active development
Projects
Two threads run in parallel: an assistant that makes the workshop faster, and a robotic fleet that shares one software stack across four domains.
Athena In development
Voice assistant // Local-first
A "Jarvis" for the workshop. Say "Athena" and she acts, launching applications, remembering context, recalling it later. Everything except the language model runs on the desk.
- Always-listening wake word, fully local
- GPU Whisper transcription at 77 ms for 3 s of audio
- Neural speech synthesis with a system fallback
- Pluggable tools: one small file adds a capability
- Long-term memory in plain Markdown
First live run // 25 Jun 2026
Garbled speech in, correct intent out, CAD package launched, spoken confirmation returned, end to end, in under five seconds.
Project Odysseus In development
Five platforms, four domains, one software stack. Each vehicle is chosen to prove the capability the next one needs, so the hardest build starts with everything already solved.
| Platform | Domain | Role in the build order |
|---|---|---|
| Cerberus | UGV | Ground vehicle. First platform built, and it proves the shared power board, driver library and comms manager that every later platform inherits. |
| Zephyr | UAV | Aerial platform. Makes flight operations routine and validates the propulsion selection work that became the Component Selector. |
| Perseus | USV | Surface vessel. Turns waterproofing from a problem into a playbook. |
| Charybdis | UUV | Subsea platform. Proves underwater control and the variable buoyancy system Chimera depends on. |
| Chimera | HAAV | The trans-media vehicle that flies and swims. Built last, deliberately: it needs every capability the other four platforms prove. |
Supported by Elysium, which provides ground control and a digital twin, plus a shared module set: power board, driver library, comms manager, variable buoyancy system.
Chimera and the water-egress problem
Research thesis
Repeatable, energy-efficient water egress for a swept-wing vehicle at the 1–5 kg scale, via a buoyancy → planing → ground-effect → wing-lift continuum, managed by a supervisory transition controller.
Chimera succeeds an honours-thesis Flying Fish Robot whose post-mortem defined two blockers: a wing loading of ~63 kg/m² implying a 26.5 m/s take-off speed unreachable with hobby propulsion, and a centre of buoyancy below the centre of mass causing inverted flotation with no trim authority.
The fix is to stop treating egress as a single leap. Each stage below hands off to the next at a speed the previous stage can already reach.
Egress sequence
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1. Buoyancy
Neutral-to-positive ascent under variable buoyancy control, surfacing the vehicle without spending propulsion energy.
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2. Planing
Water-jet-powered surface taxi on a planing afterbody with a shallow step and spray rails. The air propeller never has to drag a wetted hull.
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3. Ground effect
Telescoping swing wings deploy and the vehicle accelerates in ground effect, where induced drag is lowest.
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4. Wing lift
Climb-out only once free-air flight speed has already been reached. No stage of the sequence requires aerial thrust-to-weight above 1.
Deeper platform documentation
Individual platform plans, the fleet architecture and the communications design live on the robotics site.
Lunn Robotics ↗