Æsir Autonomous Systems

Engineering should be documented, repairable, reusable, and free to learn from.

Æsir Autonomous Systems is an open-hardware engineering initiative developing a pantheon of autonomous vehicles for air, land, surface water, and underwater exploration. Our work connects modular vehicles with embedded autonomy, sensing, communications, reusable power electronics, and the laboratory systems needed to build and validate them.

Drone Libre remains the aerial branch of this broader initiative. Shared engineering supports UAVs, ground robots, uncrewed surface vessels, underwater vehicles, and integrated search-and-rescue systems.

Our goal is to produce well-documented engineering projects that others can study, reproduce, improve, and repair. Concepts, work in progress, and demonstrated capabilities are identified separately; autonomy and performance claims must be backed by test evidence.

Engineering Philosophy

Engineering knowledge should never become tribal knowledge.

Every project should include:

• Design rationale
• Schematics
• Bill of Materials (BOM)
• Manufacturing notes
• Test procedures
• Validation results
• Revision history
• Lessons learned

If it isn't documented, it isn't finished.

Current Focus

• Air — Drone Libre / Draugr: open flight-controller architectures, modular drone airframes, and reusable propulsion electronics.
• Land: ground-vehicle conversions and walking-robot concepts.
• Water: uncrewed surface-vessel development, underwater-vehicle research, and integrated maritime search and rescue.
• Shared autonomy: embedded robotics, local computing, sensing, communications, and vehicle coordination.
• Cali-Eye and the laboratory: automated inspection, motion-control development, and engineering test fixtures.
• Power and reuse: reusable power modules, recovered electronics, and documented reverse engineering.

These are development and research areas, not a claim that every vehicle or subsystem is operational.

See the full engineering roadmap for planned phases and longer-term work.

Repository Map

This repository separates active Æsir Autonomous Systems engineering from outside research and long-term preservation.

Active Engineering

• projects/ — project notebooks, hardware development, firmware work, and test results.
• ARCHITECTURE/ — requirements, subsystem boundaries, interfaces, assumptions, and planned validation.
• LAB-NOTES/ — dated experiments, measurements, failures, observations, and bench results.
• FIELD-MANUALS/ — repeatable bring-up, test, fabrication, and lab procedures.
• research/ — Æsir-originated design studies that may become active projects.

Research and Preservation

• research_archive/ — structured references to outside projects and concepts. Entries progress from source note to research reference, mirror, and tested reference.
• RECOVERED-TECHNOLOGY-ARCHIVE/ — salvaged, obsolete, unidentified, or repairable hardware and its reverse-engineering record.
• ARCHIVE-INDEX.md — preservation strategy for active development, repository mirrors, engineering records, media, and cold storage.
• DronLibre Rescue Logs — active drone rescue, teardown, hardware-discovery, and recovery records.
• AERIS-10 Mirror — preserved PLFM phased-array radar research reference; not a validated Æsir hardware baseline.

New outside research entries should start with the mirror-entry template. Record attribution, version, license status, preserved files, verification status, and test results.

Document what was observed, separate claims from verified results, and turn useful ideas into measurable experiments.

Sustainable Engineering

One discarded electronic device can become an educational engineering platform.

Current work includes repurposing USB-C rechargeable vape power modules for:

• ESP32 projects
• Raspberry Pi systems
• Robotics
• Autonomous-vehicle power

Reuse before recycling.

Guiding Principles

• Open Hardware
• Open Documentation
• Repairability
• Reuse Before Recycling
• Measure Before Assuming
• Test Before Trusting
• Build. Document. Test. Share.

Safety Philosophy

Engineering should improve lives—not put them at unnecessary risk.

Æsir Autonomous Systems work may involve lithium-ion batteries, high-current electronics, rotating machinery, fabrication equipment, RF systems, and embedded hardware. Safety is part of the design and validation process from the beginning.

Core rules:

• Inspect before powering.
• Measure before assuming.
• Test before trusting.
• Document before repeating.
• Replace questionable components rather than risking failure.

Recovered lithium-ion cells remain unverified until inspection and measured charge/discharge testing establish their condition. Detailed procedures belong in the field manuals.

Engineering is about curiosity, but good engineering is also about responsibility.