Flight Controller - EvoloFC
The EvoloFC was designed from the ground up on the philosophy that every parameter should be accessible, every control loop observable, and every aspect of the system can be tuned or reconfigured without touching the source code.
The result is a system that serves the full lifecycle of a foiling product: rapid prototyping on day one, data-driven optimisation during development, and a stable, well-characterised foundation for a robust production vessel, all on the same hardware.
The EvoloFC is not a cheaper alternative to existing systems. It is a more capable platform for teams who need to understand, tune, evolve and optimize their system. For research programmes, performance craft, and commercial products that compete on control quality, it offers capabilities unavailable elsewhere.
Platform-agnostic: Flies any foiling craft — monohull, catamaran, PWC, USV. Crewed or un-crewed, autonomous of remotely controlled. No hardware or software lock-in.
From prototype to production on the same hardware: Allows rapid tuning during development, then deploy to production without changing hardware or rewriting code.
Full “autonomous” operation: Route following, position hold, and heading lock out of the box. Unmanned missions without custom software development.
Reliable altitude in real sea conditions: Radar-based altitude works in rain, spray, and waves where e.g. acoustic sensors fail. No manual calibration between sessions.
Open integration for collision avoidance: Any camera, LiDAR, or AIS system can feed avoidance commands directly — COLREGS-capable autonomy without a proprietary perception stack.
Tune everything without touching code: All control parameters, limits, and routes are set via a text API. Your engineers tune on the water; no firmware recompile needed.
Validate control strategies on a laptop: The complete control stack runs in desktop simulation before any water trial, reducing development cost and risk.
Safe by design: Authority reduces automatically as conditions degrade. Crash detection is hardware-level and cannot be overridden remotely.
Real-time sea state sensing: Wave height, period, and direction are available as telemetry — useful for adaptive control, voyage logging, and safety monitoring.
Built-in 4G and Wi-Fi connectivity: Wi-Fi and 4G links run simultaneously with automatic failover. Full telemetry, command access, and remote monitoring are available at sea — no shore station or physical connection to the vessel required.
Over-the-air firmware updates: New firmware is delivered and verified over Wi-Fi or 4G with no physical access to the vessel. Updates are blocked automatically when the system is armed.
Route following: Pre-loaded multi-waypoint routes executed automatically with cross-track correction and configurable arrival actions.
Loiter: Active GPS position hold at any coordinate, indefinitely, with automatic heading control.
Backseat interface: A dedicated serial port lets an external computer, such as a vision system or mission planner, inject bearing and speed commands directly into the navigation loop. The flight controller remains the safety authority at all times.
The EvoloFC supports multi-waypoint route navigation stored on the SD card. Routes can be loaded, saved, reversed, looped, and edited by command. No GUI required, though one can be built on top of the MQTT API. Each waypoint carries a configurable arrival radius and an optional action string executed automatically on arrival.
Cross-track control: Speed and heading are managed to maintain accurate rhumbline tracking, not just point-to-point steering.
One-command navigation: goTo=lat,lon,speed dispatches the craft to a position immediately with a single command.
Compass bearing mode: cogAim=bearing steers along a compass heading rather than toward a waypoint, useful for transits and timed runs.
Return to Home: RTH command clears the current route and navigates to the stored home position.
Every waypoint in a route can carry an action string that executes automatically the moment the craft arrives within the configured radius.
Payload release: Trigger dedicated release actuators to drop a buoy, sensor package, dye marker, or supply payload at an exact GPS coordinate. Left and right release actuators are independently controllable, supporting asymmetric or staged deployment.
Speed and altitude changes: Command a new cruise speed or flight height at a waypoint, for example slowing to survey speed over a measurement area and accelerating again on departure.
Mode transitions: Switch control mode, engage or disengage loiter, or change throttle mode at any point in the route, enabling complex multi-phase missions in a single pre-loaded route.
Sensor or actuator commands: Operate any servo channel, trigger logging marks, send MQTT alerts, or activate external equipment connected via the API, all tied to a geographic trigger.
Chained missions: A waypoint action can load a new route from the SD card, allowing missions to be composed from modular route segments and recombined without editing individual files.
Actions are defined when the route is created and require no live operator connection to execute. The same route and action set can be repeated across multiple runs with identical behaviour.
The EvoloFC provides a dedicated high-speed serial interface that allows any external system to inject bearing and speed commands directly into the navigation loop. The flight controller handles all inner-loop responsibilities, altitude, pitch, roll, speed, and stability, while the external system focuses entirely on situational awareness and mission decision-making. This clean separation of responsibilities is what enables true autonomy on a foiling craft.
Critically, the backseat interface makes it straightforward to integrate third-party collision avoidance and obstacle detection systems without any modification to the flight controller firmware. A camera system, LiDAR, marine radar, AIS receiver, or any combination of sensors can run on a companion computer and feed avoidance commands to the EvoloFC over the backseat port. The flight controller executes the commanded bearing and speed changes with the full precision and stability of its closed-loop control architecture.
Open interface: The backseat protocol uses a simple standard format over a dedicated serial port. Any programming language, any hardware platform, and any sensor suite can connect without a proprietary SDK or driver.
Third-party collision avoidance: Camera-based object detection, LiDAR, marine radar, and AIS systems can all feed avoidance commands via the backseat port, enabling COLREGS-aware autonomy and dynamic obstacle response without changes to the flight controller.
Safety authority remains with EvoloFC: The flight controller enforces its own health, speed, and attitude limits regardless of what the backseat system commands. A faulted or runaway external system cannot override hard safety limits or push the craft outside its flight envelope.
Configurable timeout: If the external system stops sending, the override expires automatically after a configurable timeout. The craft reverts to its own navigation state rather than holding the last commanded bearing indefinitely.
True autonomy within reach: Combining the EvoloFC inner loop with a perception-capable companion computer produces a fully autonomous foiling vessel: the EvoloFC keeps the craft flying safely while the external system decides where it goes and how it responds to obstacles. No single-vendor lock-in, no proprietary perception stack required.
The EvoloFC provides configurable turn coordination to suit different hull types, ride preferences, and mission requirements.
Coordinated turns: In a coordinated turn the lateral forces are kept minimal by mixing roll and yaw axis motion actuation. The coordination gains are fully configurable to match the foil geometry.
Flat turn mixing: For platforms or missions where e.g. roll is undesirable, flat turn mode uses rudder to change heading while the roll controller actively maintains a level ride surface.
Turn feed-forward: A configurable mixing strategy exist where roll, yaw and heave axes are blended proactively to mitigate known configuration-dependent behaviors.
Runtime configurable: Turn mode, coordination gain, and feed-forward weight are all settable by command. They can be adjusted between runs, set as part of a mission profile, or changed in real time from a remote terminal.
All telemetry is published over MQTT, the industry-standard IoT messaging protocol. State data, navigation, sensor readings, health, and control loop outputs are all available as structured JSON at configurable publish rates. Any dashboard, data logger, or autonomy system that speaks MQTT can consume EvoloFC telemetry without an adapter layer.
Dual-path comms: Wi-Fi and 4G modem operate simultaneously with automatic failover. Telemetry continues even if one link drops.
Configurable rates: State, guidance, and sensor topics each have independently configurable publish rates.
Live control loop streaming: Any control loop can be streamed live (input, setpoint, output, and error) at up to 10 Hz. Monitor tuning in real time from a laptop, phone, or dashboard.
Rolling performance statistics: Request statistical reports on any control loop over a configurable time window: integrated error, output range, actuator travel. Quantify the effect of a gain change without post-processing logs.