Autonomy System
The onboard guidance that steers our recovered hardware to a precise landing point
What It Does
During descent, the Autonomy System tracks where the hardware is, computes where it should go, and steers it there — no human in the loop. It is being developed for our own fairing and vehicle recovery, where a precise landing is the difference between reuse and rebuild.
- Autonomous descent guidance to a designated zone
- Real-time position tracking and correction
- No ground intervention required during descent
Shared DNA with GYROJET-AI
Our computer-vision and object-tracking work spans two programs: it guides GYROJET-AI to its target and guides recovered hardware to its landing zone. One team, one core stack, two applications.
- Computer-vision based tracking
- Onboard real-time processing
- Algorithms validated in software simulation
Sensing & State Estimation
Reliable autonomy starts with knowing where you are. The system fuses multiple sensor inputs into a single trusted state estimate, and keeps flying when an individual sensor doesn't.
- Multi-sensor fusion
- Redundant sensing paths
- Graceful degradation on sensor faults
Development Status
Like everything we build, the Autonomy System is developed for our own program first: simulation-tested guidance today, flight testing as our recovery campaign progresses. Partners interested in autonomous descent and precision recovery are welcome to talk to us.
- Guidance algorithms under active development
- Simulation-first validation approach
- Discuss a recovery or autonomy application →
🚗 Our Test Bed on Earth: openpilot for BYD
A vehicle on another planet has to find the right path, stay on it, and avoid what could end the mission — by itself. That is the same problem a car solves on a highway, and it is why we build driving software alongside spacecraft guidance.
We ported the BYD Atto 3 to openpilot — a brand comma.ai does not support. Steering is live and validated on road, the code is open source, and we now fit openpilot to customer cars and port models nobody has ported before.
- Real-world validation no simulation can provide
- Shared perception and path-holding engineering
- See the BYD port and our fitting service →