  We present the design and commissioning of Project Solaris, a global network
of autonomous observatories. Solaris is a Polish scientific undertaking aimed
at the detection and characterization of circumbinary exoplanets and eclipsing
binary stars. To accomplish this, a network of four fully autonomous
observatories has been deployed in the Southern Hemisphere: Solaris-1 and
Solaris-2 in the South African Astronomical Observatory in South Africa;
Solaris-3 in Siding Spring Observatory in Australia; and Solaris-4 in Complejo
Astronomico El Leoncito in Argentina. The four stations are nearly identical
and are equipped with 0.5-m Ritchey-Cr\'etien (f/15) or Cassegrain (f/9,
Solaris-3) optics and high-grade 2 K x 2 K CCD cameras with Johnson and Sloan
filter sets. We present the design and implementation of low-level security;
data logging and notification systems; weather monitoring components; all-sky
vision system, surveillance system; and distributed temperature and humidity
sensors. We describe dedicated grounding and lighting protection system design
and robust fiber data transfer interfaces in electrically demanding conditions.
We discuss the outcomes of our design, as well as the resulting software
engineering requirements. We describe our system's engineering approach to
achieve the required level of autonomy, the architecture of the custom
high-level industry-grade software that has been designed and implemented
specifically for the use of the network. We present the actual status of the
project and first photometric results; these include data and models of already
studied systems for benchmarking purposes (Wasp-4b, Wasp-64b, and Wasp-98b
transits, PG 1663-018, an eclipsing binary with a pulsator) as well
J024946-3825.6, an interesting low-mass binary system for which a complete
model is provided for the first time.
