The Needle Edge-AI Architecture
Needle is an embedded edge-AI robotics copilot developed by Theonic Labs. Operating on the Qualcomm QRB5165 platform, it orchestrates deterministic visual-inertial odometry, offboard PX4 trajectory control, and multi-band RF packet capture in GPS-denied environments.
Visual-Inertial Odometry
Subscribes to native Modal Pipe Architecture (libmodal_pipe) qVIO streams. Fuses high-rate IMU acceleration with dual-camera tracking features, sustaining centimetre-accurate position holds in low-light warehouse aisles.
Modal Pipe Architecture
Eliminates heavyweight ROS serialization overhead in the logging path. Direct C/C++ POSIX FIFO circular buffers ensure zero dropped packets during dense 6 GHz Wi-Fi beacon bursts.
Offboard Trajectory Control
Translates survey floorplan bounding polygons into optimal 3D boustrophedon flight trajectories. Communicates with the PX4 flight controller via high-speed MAVLink telemetry.
ONBOARD DATA RECORD OF RECORD: SCHEMA SPECIFICATION
Aeroscan guarantees 100% deterministic reproducibility by recording raw poses, raw Wi-Fi scan frames, and sensor calibrations into an onboard SQLite database with an immutable JSONL mirror.
CREATE TABLE poses ( timestamp_ns INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, x REAL NOT NULL, y REAL NOT NULL, z REAL NOT NULL, qx REAL NOT NULL, qy REAL NOT NULL, qz REAL NOT NULL, qw REAL NOT NULL, vio_quality REAL NOT NULL );
CREATE TABLE wifi_samples ( id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, timestamp_ns INTEGER NOT NULL, bssid TEXT NOT NULL, ssid TEXT, freq_mhz INTEGER NOT NULL, rssi_dbm REAL NOT NULL, channel_width INTEGER, FOREIGN KEY(timestamp_ns) REFERENCES poses(timestamp_ns) );