DECK 03
PERCEPTION & EXPANSION
What reaches outward
Mast and perception systems, audio, sensor integration, and expansion live closest to the platform's changing edge.
ACTIVE R&D // PHYSICAL MAPPING
CLARA
Cognitive Locomotion & Autonomous Robotic Architecture
A modular mobile robotics architecture being designed to perceive the world, understand its own state, and gain new physical capabilities without rebuilding the platform around them.
The current work is not a polished robot reveal. It is the less glamorous—and more important—part: deciding what the machine needs to know, where systems belong, how they connect, and how the architecture survives iteration.
MOBILE PLATFORMDISTRIBUTED SENSINGMODULAR EXPANSIONSIMULATION FIRST
MAST // STOWEDMK.I / CORE PLATFORM
Platform Readout
- PLATFORM
- CLARA / MK.I
- MAST
- STOWED
- SENSING
- MULTI-DIRECTIONAL
- DRIVE
- DIFFERENTIAL MOBILE
- PORTS
- MODULAR / 4 IF
§ 01 / PROJECT BRIEF
The body changes the problem.
Modern AI can work across enormous amounts of information while remaining physically detached from the consequences of its output. Give intelligence a body and the problem changes immediately.
Movement creates state. Perception needs spatial context. A sensor can disagree with another sensor. A wheel can slip. A module can disappear. A physical system has to notice what is happening while it is happening.
CLARA is our attempt to design that connection deliberately: a stable mobile core, an elevated perception architecture, organized internal systems, and standardized places for future capability to attach.
§ 02 / PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE
Capability should grow from the platform.
Inspect the current architecture. Mk I establishes the mobile core and perception mast. The future study shows manipulation added through interfaces already considered in the base—not a separate robot designed from scratch.
MAST STATE
MAST // OBSERVATIONMK.I / CORE PLATFORM
Distributed Physical Intelligence06 · CATEGORIES
◆ FOCUSR.—
Hover, focus, or tap a region on the schematic — or select a category — to inspect part of the architecture.
§ 03 / INTERNAL ORGANIZATION
Three broad layers. Clear reasons for each.
The current mapping uses functional decks as an organizing constraint. This is not a published component map; it is a way to keep power, coordination, perception, expansion, and service access from becoming one undifferentiated box.
DECK 02
COMPUTE & CONTROL
What coordinates
Processing, storage, communication, and system coordination form the middle layer between observation and physical action.
DECK 01
POWER & LOCOMOTION
What keeps it moving
Energy, distribution, drive control, and locomotion remain low in the chassis where mass and service boundaries matter.
§ 04 / DESIGN METHOD
Designing from the inside out.
Architecture before appearance
The shell is not the project. Structure, access, sensing, movement, and system boundaries get resolved first.
A platform designed to change
CLARA Ports and reserved manipulation interfaces exist because the useful hardware six months from now may not be the hardware selected today.
Service access is architecture
Experimental machines get opened. Frequently. Compute, control, power, and expansion systems are being organized around inspection and replacement.
Distributed physical awareness
The platform should build state from multiple forms of feedback instead of trusting a single isolated measurement.
Simulation buys hardware time
Movement, interfaces, and system behavior should be challenged virtually before expensive parts become the test fixture.
§ 05 / FROM THE DESIGN BOARD
The unresolved questions are part of the work.
CLARA is in physical mapping because these choices compound. A convenient decision at the sensor mast can become a service problem in the chassis or a limitation at a future interface.
Q.01
What belongs in the core platform, and what should remain an expansion module?
Q.02
How much physical state should CLARA understand locally?
Q.03
Where does redundant sensing become useful rather than wasteful?
Q.04
What should remain functional when a subsystem becomes unavailable?
Q.05
How do you make a robot easy to change without making it structurally vague?
Q.06
How much can be invalidated in simulation before fabrication begins?
§ 06 / CURRENT WORK
Physical mapping is active.
The immediate goal is to turn the architecture into a defensible physical layout before fabrication: structural regions, internal layers, sensor relationships, expansion boundaries, and access paths.
ACTIVEMAPPING STRUCTURAL REGIONS
- T.01CONCEPT ARCHITECTURE COMPLETE
- T.02SYSTEM DECOMPOSITION COMPLETE
- T.03PHYSICAL MAPPING ACTIVE
- T.04PROTOTYPE FABRICATION UPCOMING
- T.05SYSTEM INTEGRATION PLANNED