THRACIAN

Real-time motion control

Motion, held to the microsecond.

Thracian builds ARC, a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) motion controller that closes the loop in hardware. Your robot's timing becomes a specification rather than a hope.

What we build

Three layers, and nothing in between

Most controllers put a general-purpose operating system between your command and your motor, then ask you to trust the average. ARC keeps the deadline in silicon and lets the software do only the work that can afford to be interrupted.

Programmable logic

Timing lives in the fabric

Logic written straight into the chip drives the motor bus. Nothing schedules it. Nothing preempts it. A hardware pause line stops the arm whether or not the processor is still listening.

Processing system

The motion system

A C++ motion system runs on the processor and hands finished work down to the fabric. It can take the time it needs. The fabric's timing does not depend on it.

Interface

Plain Python, no ceremony

Commands are short, explicit, and return status on their own channel. Reach is checked against your robot model before anything is queued, so an impossible pose is a Python error rather than a stalled joint.

Specification

On the record

Platform
Single-board System-on-Chip with programmable logic
Control fabric
Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)
Motion system
C++
Motor bus
Controller Area Network (CAN)
Actuators
Torque-mode brushless actuators over CAN
Host interface
Python, with a status return channel
Fault handling
Per-command isolation and a hardware pause
Safety rating
None claimed — not a certified safety controller
In the field

The first arm picks strawberries

Demonstrator

A four-actuator harvesting arm

Strawberries are a hard first customer. The fruit is soft, the window is short, and the labour to pick it is disappearing. The demonstrator runs the whole controller on a printed arm built from parts anyone can order.

It exists to prove one claim: the loop closes on time, every time, on hardware you can hold.

University programme

Units on loan to robotics labs

Thracian places ARC units with university robotics laboratories on short-term loan. You get the controller and the interface; we get your notes on what broke and what was missing.

If you run a lab and have an arm that needs a controller, write to us.