Tricity Labs

Tricity Labs is an open-source robotics lab with a simple philosophy: build capable field robots that anyone can reproduce, on a budget, using freely available tools and hardware.

The lab focuses on two platforms, a ground rover and an aerial drone, both aimed at autonomous data collection and mapping in challenging outdoor environments.

Projects

Rover — Offroad Autonomous UGV

An offroad ground robot equipped with GPS-RTK for centimeter-level positioning, designed to navigate forests and agricultural terrain autonomously, collect data, and index it.

Goals:

• Reproducible design with full documentation and open-source code
• Budget-friendly bill of materials
• Safe autonomous navigation in unstructured, offroad terrain

Drone — Autonomous Research UAV

A fixed-wing or multirotor platform for aerial data collection over large areas.

Goals:

• High-resolution photogrammetry and mapping
• 3D reconstruction of forests and industrial structures (e.g. power towers)
• GPS-denied localisation using visual odometry / camera-only methods

Dev Log

A running log of progress, experiments, and milestones across both platforms.

2026

April 2026

• Tricity Labs page created on the site.
• Rover project scoped: GPS-RTK module selected, chassis design started.
• Drone project scoped: camera-based localisation pipeline research started.

2025

Q3–Q4 2025

• Initial research on offroad autonomous navigation approaches (ROS2, Nav2, custom planners).
• Benchmarked GPS-RTK modules for cost vs. accuracy trade-offs.
• Evaluated open-source photogrammetry pipelines (OpenDroneMap, Colmap) for 3D reconstruction.
• Studied GPS-denied localisation methods: ORB-SLAM3, OpenVINS.

This log is updated as work progresses. For questions or collaboration, reach out at contact@iliasamri.com.