Malia

The Machine Kingdom

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○ Research

SCARAB

Dung beetleScarabaeus satyrus

Celestial and polarization compass research for GNSS-denied navigation.

(01) — Dossier

Kingdom
INSTINCT — The Intelligence Kingdom

Embodied AI · perception · learning · communication · manipulation

Readiness

○ Research

Higher-risk program; key advantages remain experimental. A MALIA planning category, not a formal TRL.

Status

Proposed concept

SCARAB is under study — it is not manufactured, fielded or validated.

(02) — Biological principle

Navigation by polarized skylight and the Milky Way.

What the organism solved.

(03) — Engineering ambition

Celestial and polarization compass research for GNSS-denied navigation.

The machine it points toward — an ambition, not a promise.

(04) — Research questions

  1. Q01

    What produces the effect — navigation by polarized skylight and the Milky Way — and which part of the mechanism is essential rather than incidental to the biology?

  2. Q02

    What is the simplest machine that could deliver celestial and polarization compass research for GNSS-denied navigation without replicating the organism wholesale?

  3. Q03

    What evidence would falsify the approach — under which conditions is SCARAB worse than the conventional alternative, and how early could that be shown?

Programs begin as questions, not specifications. GENOME indexes the biological mechanism; INSTINCT tests what survives the move into a machine.

(05) — Related species

Also in INSTINCT.

9 other programs in the INSTINCT kingdom.