NULLFAC / LAB

HELIO-1 / SOLAR-AWARE COMPUTING

A little sun.
A thinking
machine.

A machine should understand the energy that keeps it alive. Follow sunlight through silicon into sensing, movement, and the decision to rest.

Enter the chip ↘Watch the tutorial ▷

A proposed architecture for solar-aware robotics. Explore the design and put its energy budget to the test.

32-bitRISC-V mission core / proposed
16 lanesINT8 compute / proposed
192 KiBMemory / allocated
0.06 m²Solar panel / model assumption

01 / FROM PATTERN TO PURPOSE

Inside the machine.

Trace an image through memory and sixteen compute lanes. Explore the circuitry, then follow the paths that power and protect it.

HELIO–1 / ADJACENCY MODEL
Compute / I/O Memory Energy ReflexARCHITECTURE / 12 FUNCTIONAL REGIONS
Traffic-distance cost 26.01

Keep high-traffic blocks close together. This communication-distance model compares placements; it does not measure power savings.

Interactive architecture visualization—not a manufactured die or a fabrication-ready layout. Macro proportions illustrate function, not physical area.

02 / A FINITE SUPPLY OF SUNLIGHT

Make the energy
last.

The panel collects. The battery stores. The robot spends. Change the conditions and watch the daily budget respond.

What this model assumes

22% panel efficiency, 90% conversion, 95% charging and 95% discharging. Sleeping consumes 0.05 W. A work request is capped at four hours per day. The 20 Wh battery starts at 8 Wh; movement preserves a 4 Wh reserve. Both policies pass all energy through storage. Constant efficiencies and perfect daily solar knowledge are simplifications.

SUSTAINABLE WORK / DAILY MODEL

4.00hours
of activity

The daily harvest covers the four-hour work request under these assumptions.

01 / Harvest47.52 WhAfter conversion
→
02 / Available42.89 WhAfter storage losses
→
03 / Requested41.00 WhWhole-robot daily load

Three days. A changing energy budget.

72 HOURS / STORED ENERGY
Adaptive workFixed requestMotion reserve
Battery energy across three modeled days

Days two and three receive one quarter of day one's sunlight. Peak-sun-hours describe daily energy, not hours of uninterrupted sunshine. This model omits weather uncertainty, temperature, peak motor current and battery chemistry.

03 / FOLLOW THE ENTIRE CHAIN

From sunbeam
to silicon.

The complete narrated tutorial, with chapter navigation and a searchable transcript. Start anywhere; follow the questions upstream.

00:00 / full tutorialHELIO-1 · synthetic narration

Select a chapter or press play. The full tutorial loads in sections.

  1. Loading chapters…
Read or search the full transcript ＋

04 / THE HORIZON

Intelligence within
its means.

Less energy spent on staying awake. More energy available for understanding the world.

01

Sense with purpose

Bring perception, memory, and decisions closer together. The architecture explores how a small robot can spend its limited energy on information that changes what it does next.

02

Know when to rest

Make energy availability part of the decision itself. A protected motion reserve, fresh perception, and an independent stop path are central to the controller design.

03

Make it physical

HELIO-1 is in architectural development. The next milestones are hardware simulation, physical layout, and measured robot trials. A manufactured, validated chip is the destination—not a claim about this visualization.