An Arclight AI product
Autonomous Operating System for Vessels.
Actaea OS gives a language-model agent structured, queryable visibility into every vessel system — live nautical chart with AIS traffic and collision-risk coloring, two-phase command commit, and a hardware kill switch no software can cross. Every protocol is open. Every component is repairable.
What it looks like
Every system. One console.
Vessel state at a glance, live nautical chart with AIS overlay and CPA collision-risk coloring, per-circuit telemetry with tier-coded access boundaries, and a Helm console where the agent proposes and the operator confirms — two-phase commit visible throughout.
NAV view · AIS overlay · two-phase commit visible in the Helm pane
Actaea
An agent that understands the boat.
Not a chatbot bolted onto a dashboard. The Captain reads structured telemetry from every instrumented system, reasons over it, and acts — within bounds you set. Degrades gracefully to on-vessel inference when the cloud is unavailable, and to deterministic logic when the LLM is unavailable.
What's our battery state right now?
Port bank 78% (214 Ah available), starboard 82%. Solar input 4.2 A. At current draw of 6.8 A, both banks stay above your 50% floor for approximately 12 h.
Source: Victron SmartShunt ×2 · sampled 4 s ago
Are we ready to leave for Nassau tomorrow at 06:00?
- ①Wind forecast 22–27 kt through 14:00 — above your 20 kt comfort band.
- ②Watermaker filter overdue by 12 h on recorded cycle.
Source: GRIB wind model · AIS · Monitors 3, 7
Any traffic to watch on the inlet approach?
One vessel of concern: HARBOR PATROL bearing 225°, CPA 0.2 nm in 3 min — crossing situation. Two other targets nominal, one receding. Recommend easing 15° to starboard to open CPA above 0.5 nm.
Source: AIS · 4 targets · CPA computed real-time
Shed non-essential loads for the night.
Proposing load shed — estimated save 1.4 A:
confirmed
Done. 3 circuits switched off. HMAC verified. FDR entry written.
Source: Tier 2 action · 22:14 UTC · ref shed-2847
How it works
Six layers, each with a single responsibility and an open protocol on its output side. No vendor cloud required at any layer.
The four-tier safety policy
The hardware wall gets thinner as software authority increases. Tier 0 is a physical barrier an agent can never cross. Tier 3 is a rate-limited write with no real-world risk.
No software path. A physical breaker an agent can never reach.
- Bilge pumps
- Primary nav lights
- Engine start
- VHF
- EPIRB
Read state. Cannot switch. Hardware-controlled at the panel.
- Refrigeration
- Watermaker
- Autopilot
- AIS transmit
- Anchor light
Read and write — gated, idempotent, two-phase commit. Hardware override remains.
- Accessory lighting
- Fans
- Entertainment
- Deck wash
Full read/write at low rate-limit. No real-world risk if an agent gets it wrong.
- Cabin scene lighting
- Music
- Indoor temp setpoints
No software path. A physical breaker an agent can never reach.
- Bilge pumps
- Primary nav lights
- Engine start
- +2 more
Read state. Cannot switch. Hardware-controlled at the panel.
- Refrigeration
- Watermaker
- Autopilot
- +2 more
Read and write — gated, idempotent, two-phase commit. Hardware override remains.
- Accessory lighting
- Fans
- Entertainment
- +1 more
Full read/write at low rate-limit. No real-world risk if an agent gets it wrong.
- Cabin scene lighting
- Music
- Indoor temp setpoints
Requirements
What the install actually takes.
An industrial x86 node, an NMEA 2000 backbone, and a helm-mounted kill switch. No cloud subscription required to operate.
- Fanless industrial x86-64
- EN 60945 maritime certified
- DC-DC 9–36 V · IP67 enclosure
- Pi 5 supported for prototyping only
- Any N2K-compliant device
- Signal K server on the same node
- Victron Cerbo GX via MQTT
- Mosquitto broker · InfluxDB on-vessel
- Helm-mounted physical switch
- Cuts write authority — reads stay live
- Separate MCU watchdog + power rail
- Hardware relay as master
Pre-install gate
Won't install on the wrong hardware.
The acceptance test detects the compute target before install runs. A Pi 5 hard-fails with an explicit migration notice. Six hardware checks — IP66 integrity, surge-protection continuity, N2K bus load, watchdog round-trip, FDR integrity, fallback drill — must all pass before the post-install sign-off record is written.
Native marine integrations
Works with everything already on your boat.
Actaea speaks the protocols marine vessels already run — NMEA 2000, Signal K, MQTT, Modbus. No vendor-cloud lock-in, no partner-program gates.
What's different
Why not just run a chartplotter OS?
Marine MFDs bundle a closed operating system with the hardware. Monolithic firmware, manual at-your-own-risk updates, vendor-controlled app store, hardware generations stranded on old software — that posture is fundamentally incompatible with how AI systems need to operate.
Closed-stack reality drawn from publicly-documented vendor release notes
Already have a chartplotter?
Actaea works alongside it.
Actaea reads everything your chartplotter broadcasts on the NMEA 2000 bus. Your B&G keeps doing race-start sequences, laylines, and SailSteer. Your Raymarine keeps drawing charts and driving the autopilot.
Actaea handles what a chartplotter was never built for — structured vessel-state telemetry, AI agent operations, anomaly detection, and a safe write layer on non-critical DC loads. The two run on the same bus without conflict.
Get in touch
Building something
similar? We'd like to hear it.
Actaea is an Arclight AI product — an enterprise AI practice that ships production systems, not slide-deck prototypes. Schemas, MCP tool surface, and architecture decisions are public. Marine or otherwise, the door is open.
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