From lunar hypothesis to full autonomous stack in 3 months.
How we went from asking "what if we could deploy energy nodes on the Moon?" to a working end-to-end charging stack here on Earth.
A $100M rover dies in 14 days because energy isn't there. Solar panels only work in sunlight, batteries drain in the lunar night (-173°C). We asked: what if we could deploy energy nodes for opportunity charging?
Researched how to charge on the Moon. Found that induction is the best method: no connectors to jam with regolith dust, no moving parts. Discovered Astrobotic's wireless charging research in thermal vacuum testing, confirming the approach.
Designed the Lunar Energy Node concept: small, deployable charging modules buried in regolith for thermal protection. Nodes form a mesh network with AI-assisted routing, creating the first multi-node lunar energy grid.
Designed the LEN-P: a rugged cylindrical battery with wireless charging dock, 1-2 kWh storage, shock absorbers, thermal management, and ground-penetration anchoring. Engineered to survive impact.
Mapped out the prototype development phases: from core electronics (Phase 1) to V0 cylinder, shock buffer, embed/penetrator, charging box, and finally the full-scale 1 kWh form factor. Physical prototypes at each stage.
3D-printed the LEN-P projectile at 1/3 scale (155mm form factor reference). Researched artillery shell aerodynamics and impact resistance. The idea: catapult energy to the Moon. Drop it from orbit, it lands and becomes a charging node.
Pivoted from Moon to Earth to validate the core technology. Built Spark-E from scratch and our first conductive charging station. The team at the Artifact lab in SF, hands-on hardware.
First autonomous charging demo. Spark-E with NVIDIA Jetson, LiDAR, depth camera detects the ArUco marker, navigates to the conductive pad, and charges itself. Zero human intervention.
Evolved the navigation system into a charging orchestration layer. The robot detects low battery, plans route to nearest charger, docks with precision, charges, and resumes its mission. Full autonomous loop.
Built our own induction charging pads. Started at 5W, scaled to 100W. Custom 3D-printed enclosures with copper coils. Wireless, no connectors, no dust issues. The same technology for the Moon works on Earth.
Chargebotic V1 complete. Mecanum-wheel robot + LiDAR + depth camera + induction charging station + autonomous navigation + charging orchestration. End-to-end autonomous charging loop, fully operational.
Robotics platform + battery + charging infrastructure + orchestration software. Now talking to fleet operators across all verticals to find where to deploy first. Stay tuned.