hobby Jan 2026 → present Ongoing

Ligmax, an autonomous boat

A custom boat designed from scratch. Hull, electronics, perception, and software. The goal is an autonomous-capable platform with full situational awareness: dual gimballed cameras, lidar, integrated battery pack, and onboard buoy detection. In progress throughout 2026.

What's on board

Hull: Designed and modelled from scratch, with every component placed before fabrication.
Perception: Lidar plus two cameras on independent gimbals. A buoy-detection CNN runs onboard for navigation reference.
Power: Custom battery pack with active mass-balance, located to keep the centre of gravity low and trim controllable.
Compute: Onboard SBC handling perception, control, and telemetry uplink.

Design imagery

Top-view sketch of the hull — Hull, top view sketch

Front-view sketch of the hull — Hull, front view sketch

Battery movement actuator — Battery mass-balance

Side view of the front camera assembly — Front camera, side view

Both cameras and top light — Cameras & top light

Buoy detection model output — Buoy detection model

Full assembly under bright light — Full assembly

Status

Mechanical design is locked. Electronics are bench-tested and integrating now. Perception models are training against a custom buoy dataset. On-water trials scheduled for later this year. This page will grow with the project, so check back.

Design document

Full design document (CAD overview, sensor stack, electrical, control):

Download: Ligmax.pdf (full design document)

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