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Work

A helm for a fully electric boat

A first working prototype of navigation, charts and live battery and propulsion analytics for an electric boat, wired into the vessel’s own hardware and demonstrated on the water in Spain, ahead of the client’s funding round.

What it proves
That we can take embedded software from a blank page to a first working prototype on a client’s own hardware, against a deadline someone else sets.
Method stages
Built from
  • Marine navigation and charting on OpenCPN and wxWidgets
  • Direct integration with vessel hardware over CAN bus and NMEA
  • Live analytics: battery, propulsion and position
  • x86 prototype hardware, later ported to ARM
  • C/C++ and Python
  • Linux
Sectors

The problem

A startup building a fully electric boat needed a helm it could show investors on the water. Navigation, charts and boat analytics all had to read the vessel’s own hardware. The deadline was the client’s next funding round. A captain on open water learns within minutes whether a reading is live or simulated.

What we built

One team did product design and embedded engineering against one date. Navigation and charting run on OpenCPN and wxWidgets on Linux: established marine software that handles charts and can be extended. The helm reads the boat directly over CAN bus and NMEA, the protocols the vessel speaks, with no simulated feed. A live analytics panel beside the chart plotter shows battery state, propulsion and position from the same telemetry.

Development started on x86 prototype hardware and was tested against the boat’s hardware early. We ported to ARM as the target platform firmed up. The code is C/C++ and Python. Every interface decision was tested against one question: would someone who has never seen this system trust it mid-manoeuvre?

What it proves for a client

The prototype ran on the boat’s own hardware and was demonstrated on the water in Spain. We delivered hardware-integrated software to a fixed external date, and the live integration held up in front of the people deciding the funding.

Method stages

The work covers parts of Stage 02 · Prove the value, with a prototype in on-water conditions early, and Stage 03 · Engineer the system, with embedded integration into the vessel’s hardware. It stopped before Stage 04 · Pilot in one place. See the KARPINITY Method.