Show HN: I built a tiny camera that knows where it is
14 hours ago
- Developed a tiny 10g SLAM camera (Mighty) running onboard VIO and loop closure.
- Outputs position and orientation at 20Hz over USB/UART, usable by Arduino-based robots.
- First ESP32-S3 prototype hit memory limits; switched to Rockchip RV1103 for Linux and NEON support.
- Achieved ~15Hz VIO on single ARMv7 core; later added NPU-based place recognition for loop closure.
- Designed PCB with global-shutter camera and IMU; multiple revisions fixed issues like reversed connector and oscillator failures.
- Created browser-based tooling for firmware updates (WebUSB with WebAssembly) and calibration (guided workflow).
- Integrated loop closure as beta firmware; documented performance under various conditions (darkness, vibration, etc.).
- Shipped Batch 1 after testing on a toy drone; open-sourced SDKs and protocol (Mighty Protocol).
- Personal journey: software background learned hardware design; 20 months from prototype to shipping hardware.