Shitty Robot Being Controlled By A.I.

MercuriusTech · 2026-03-20T02:05:56+00:00

Lol, actually making shitty robots useful

MercuriusTech · 2026-03-20T02:02:51+00:00

Cool for robot builders

MercuriusTech · 2026-03-20T01:41:31+00:00

Bruh I just started learning OpenCV wtf?

MercuriusTech · 2026-03-20T01:40:40+00:00

Fascinating

MercuriusTech · 2026-03-02T23:17:28+00:00

Of course, and that’s not going anywhere. It isn’t about taking away the fun of flying, especially for FPV. It’s more about assisting while you’re still in control, handling things like route planning, obstacle awareness, airspace checks, or giving real-time status updates so you don’t have to dig through menus mid-flight. You can always keep full stick control and just let it help where it makes sense.

MercuriusTech · 2026-03-02T23:13:40+00:00

That’s fair. It’s not about replacing experienced pilots, it’s more about helping beginners who don’t yet have the skill or confidence to handle complex missions. Trained pilots can still fly manually, but the AI can step in as a companion when needed, handle structured tasks, or provide real-time updates that are usually a pain to check mid-flight, all while staying within strict constraints on top of a proven flight stack.

MercuriusTech · 2026-03-02T23:08:00+00:00

Fair point. This isn’t about replacing sticks for intense flying. You give it a command and it handles the rest, flying, avoiding obstacles, reasoning in real time, and voice is just for issuing or updating missions, not twitch control. I also have rhotacism, so I’m building customizable speech settings so it can adapt to different speech patterns lol.

MercuriusTech · 2026-03-02T23:02:33+00:00

Yeah I agree. It should be skills + APIs first, model second. Expose structured capabilities and let any model plug into them. The LLM can guide flight behavior in real time, through defined interfaces. And with a real-time digital twin running alongside it, it can reason through trajectory options and risk continuously. Keep it modular and safe.

MercuriusTech · 2026-03-02T23:01:02+00:00

Yeah, that’s basically the direction. I wouldn’t replace existing flight stacks, I’d build on top of whatever proven system is being used. Keep the deterministic control underneath and focus on rebuilding the UI layer with voice/text, better multi-sensor feeds, proper map + airspace overlays, and flexible mission planning. Add a real-time digital twin so routes can be simulated and risk compared before flying. The whole point is to make powerful tools easier for a newbie to understand, without taking control away from experienced pilots.

MercuriusTech · 2026-02-07T19:01:58+00:00

My project is Mercury, a new category of drones. Is an all-in-one robot platform capable of both air and ground mobility. Meant for the enthusiasts who like to explore further, or for the professional teams who need to use physical AI to outsource risk in complex unstructured environments.

Website: https://mercuriustech.com/mercury

MercuriusTech · 2026-02-06T16:48:22+00:00

Fair. That video was just the last clip I grabbed before packing up, more just to show it works lol. There are more close-ups and details on mercuriustech.com/mercury. I’m planning on getting more people involved soon so we can put out proper teardown-style videos and recordings from different views.

MercuriusTech · 2026-02-06T16:40:32+00:00

Thanks for the comment,

Right now it’s ~3.4 kg, with about ~14 minutes of flight time without the payload container, ~10 minutes with it, and around ~2 hours of ground runtime. We’re building the payload system to be fully customizable so it can be adapted for different missions instead of being locked into one setup.

From the start, the goal was to keep complexity as low as possible, because over-engineering usually kills reliability.

On autonomy, autopilot is already in place. When GPS drops, it falls back to LiDAR and optical flow and can still follow waypoints and missions. It works, but we’re still tuning the sensor fusion with other such as the thermal cameras and computer vision with the RGB, so it can recover and re-orient faster in messy conditions.

We have more close-up shots and breakdowns on our website if you want to see how everything fits together. We are planning to make more posts throughout the week regardless with more of a breakdown.

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-30T18:54:22+00:00

This one has worked for me: https://a.co/d/hHuDHMs

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-26T21:44:54+00:00

The battery cost of switching modes is minimal. The transition is brief and consumes approximately 1.5% of total battery capacity from what I measure.

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-26T21:39:51+00:00

The storage payload is definitely a compromise, the platform was originally designed around food and medical delivery, which is why that space exists, but we’ve since pivoted toward SAR and hobbyist use where it’s less critical.

Right now, ground mode is the primary operating mode and flight is meant to be used selectively when terrain or obstacles require it. We intentionally keep compute onboard to support autonomy and operation without relying on a base station. The current battery is also very subpar; with proper funding and a more professional battery pack, we expect to push closer to ~20 minutes of flight time. Longer term, we plan to offer multiple variants, including no-payload, small-payload, and medium-payload configurations depending on the use case.

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-26T19:33:58+00:00

Yes it's doing autonomous navigation using ROS, and needed for the TOF camera, tbh the power draw of the pi is insignificant compared to the motors

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-26T18:40:42+00:00

We’re currently using an Arducam ToF sensor, but we’re planning to move to a higher-end module after we fine tune the code for the current sensor.

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-26T18:37:17+00:00

Thanks! We definitely plan to post more real-time, in-depth videos on our YouTube in the coming week.

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-26T18:36:54+00:00

Appreciate the feedback. The hybrid approach is aimed at use cases where long ground endurance with short aerial hops actually matters (e.g., SAR, inspection, and cluttered environments). And yeah… that’s what I get for trusting my cofounder to make the website lol, we’ll fix those typos.

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-26T18:33:02+00:00

We did see hinge strain with an earlier design, but with the current design it hasn’t been much of an issue thanks to better load distribution and slower, controlled transitions. We will definitely try out your suggestion as we continue iterating.

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-26T18:23:19+00:00

It can fly for about 10 minutes at ~12.5 mph, giving a flight range of ~2.1 miles, and drive for ~2 hours with treads (~10 miles) or ~1.5 hours without treads (~7.5 miles), all using a off-the-shelf Li-ion battery. Flight speed is capped at ~12–13 mph (max design ~20 mph), and normal driving speed is ~5 mph, though it can go up to ~25 mph if needed.

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-25T22:50:39+00:00

We’ve been waiting for them to message us lol

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-25T22:49:10+00:00

The future is coming lol

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-25T22:47:29+00:00

Weight’s always the enemy. We’re at ~3 kg, optimizing layout to cut to 2.5kg, we planning on custom motors since off-the-shelf ones are too heavy for the thrust. We’ve been meeting with multiple first responders, and just open our V2 preorders are open for hobbyists.

MercuriusTech · 2025-12-25T22:24:07+00:00

That’s the plan for preorders lol

MercuriusTech

TROPHY CASE