Development journey
xSAR is being built in stages. This page records what is current, what has been completed and what comes next. Dates are included so visitors can see both the history and the present pulse of the project.
Current focus · October 2026
Bench generator demo
A bench demonstration of a small engine-driven generator, not a flight unit. The hardware is a 3.3 cubic centimetre engine, a flywheel clutch and a gearbox geared down to 7800 rpm, aimed at 14.4 V AC.
Recent milestones
October 2026 · Bench generator demo
October’s project is a bench demonstration, not a flight unit. The hardware on the bench is a 3.3 cubic centimetre engine, a flywheel clutch and a gearbox geared down to 7800 rpm, aimed at 14.4 V AC. Those figures are this bench’s targets.
Currawong Engineering Pty Ltd, Huntingfield, Tasmania, describes itself as a world leader in engine powertrain systems and power electronics for unmanned aerial vehicles. On their Corvid power-supply page, the generator is mounted on the engine and driven by a toothed belt from the engine output shaft, and it produces electrical power which the supply converts to the required outputs. Published examples: Corvid-29, 29 cc displacement, 250 W generator; Corvid-50, 50 cc displacement, 250 W generator, engine 2.8 kW at 7,000 rpm. Those published figures are Currawong’s, not the bench targets above.
October 2026 · Vision-driven route-planning test bed
QMP QEMU Socket now drives a Windows guest using frames from the new QEMU Screen Grab Server over TCP, with the shared xsar crate providing capture, image-matching and card-deal models. Pyramid deals are exported to JSON and read by Basic Route Planning, the start of Dijkstra and A* work that models search-area coverage, with obscured cards standing in for impassable terrain, floods or bushfires. Longer write-ups are now published as X Articles and listed on the home page.
29 July 2026 · Website and repository structure
Separated the public development journey from the open-source repository map, added clear project links and made support and current activity easier to find.
July 2026 · Public repository map
Organised the GitHub profile by engineering area, including firmware, sensors, positioning, DSP, Linux tools, Rust crates and inter-device communications.
July 2026 · Sensor logger version 2 planning
Defined grouped, oscilloscope-style channel views, central parameters and cleaner separation between collection, configuration and display.
Next steps
- Define and document the CAN FD message structure.
- Publish initial RP2350 firmware scaffolding when interfaces are stable enough to be useful.
- Add photographs, plots and test summaries to dated progress entries.
- Continue moving mature tools from offline development into public repositories.
Follow shorter updates
Day-to-day engineering notes, hardware arrivals and smaller milestones are shared on X @xSAR_Research. Public code and documentation live on the Open Source page.
Last updated: 18 October 2026