Hardware · KiCad 7 · ngspice-42

Hardware

Three boards for the forward edge of DefenseScope and Cascade: an edge meter carrier, a node carrier and a sensing harness. Designed and simulated, with Gerbers exported.

Status: designed and simulated. Not fabricated. Nothing has been ordered and no board has been measured. Every number here is a datasheet reading, arithmetic or an ngspice trace, and says which.

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01 · Tier 2 · forward edge appliance

Edge meter carrier

92 × 70 mm · 4 layers · designed in KiCad 7 · simulated in ngspice-42

Meters a bought compute module, so the edge appliance knows what each model costs in watts. The tier runs under a 5 W average model gate: a model that does not fit the budget does not ship to the edge.

Edge meter carrier, 3D render from KiCad — 3D render from the KiCad model. Not a photograph.

Edge meter carrier, copper layout — Copper layout.

Figure H1. Edge meter carrier, 92 × 70 mm, four layers. It meters a bought compute module through a current and power monitor. ngspice: the 5 W load holds the rail; at 7 W the rail sags to 3.75 V and the design fails.

Transient load steps on the 5 V rail in ngspice-42: 5 W holds, 7 W sags to 3.75 V and fails.
Current and power read through an INA260 monitor, per its datasheet.

02 · Tier 1 · unattended sensor node

Node carrier

72 × 50 mm · 4 layers · designed in KiCad 7 · simulated in ngspice-42

Carries a satellite IoT module for a node that decides on board and sends 200-byte signed events instead of raw data. The node lives under a 0.25 W average cap.

Node carrier, 3D render from KiCad — 3D render from the KiCad model. Not a photograph.

Node carrier, copper layout — Copper layout.

Figure H2. Node carrier, 72 × 50 mm, four layers, for a satellite IoT module. The whole node lives under a 0.25 W average cap. A 70 mA burst is 0.231 W and passes; 78 mA held is 0.257 W and the design rejects it.

A 70 mA transmit burst on the 3.3 V rail is 0.231 W and passes the cap.
78 mA held is 0.257 W, and the design rejects it.

03 · Tier 2 · sensors for the edge appliance

Sensing harness

140 × 96 mm · 4 layers · designed in KiCad 7 · simulated in ngspice-42

Puts four bought sensors on one board: a passive radio receiver, a short-range radar, a thermal camera and a microphone array. One harness, one power budget, no communications transmitter.

Sensing harness, 3D render from KiCad — 3D render from the KiCad model. Not a photograph.

Sensing harness, copper layout — Copper layout.

Figure H3. Sensing harness, 140 × 96 mm, four layers. Four bought sensors on one board: a passive radio receiver, a short-range radar, a thermal camera and a microphone array. 13.74 W in total from datasheets, and no communications transmitter.

13.74 W in total, summed from the four datasheets.

Why the node decides on board.

The difference between 22 days and 866 is software, not a bigger battery.

Figure H4. Days of unattended life on one 2.6 kWh primary lithium pack at −40 °C, by average draw. Engineering estimates from published component data: days = pack energy ÷ average power. Deciding on the node turns a 4 MB image into a 200-byte signed event, and that is most of the gap between 22 days and 866.

Where the boards sit.

Five tiers, and the four budgets every tier must meet: power, link, provenance and human authority.

Tier	Runs	Power	Link	Provenance	Human authority
4National sovereign cloud	Command and control, archives, training, simulation	Grid	Fibre to the enclave	Model registry, model cards, signatures	Approves every promotion and release
3Regional fusion node	Multi-source fusion, knowledge graph, console, release gate	Site power	Broadband up; mesh and satellite down	Lineage store, hash-chained audit	The watch: accept, question, reject
2Forward edge applianceEdge meter carrier, sensing harness	On-site inference, local tracks, store and forward	5 W average model gate	Mesh, LoRa, satellite burst	Signed bundles, measured boot	Lost-link ladder; no effectors
1Sensor node and packNode carrier	Detect on the node, send events, duty-cycled power	0.25 W average	200-byte signed events	Hardware identity at source	Sensors inform a person
0Physical world and feeds	Satellites, ship and aircraft reports, gauges, weather	Not ours	Provider interfaces	Source, time, licence, hash at ingest	None

Renders.

Concept renders made with the designs. None of this hardware has been built.

Edge appliance concept, compute under a heat sink. Render, not a photograph.
Primary lithium pack concept for a cold-weather node. Render, not a photograph.
A node on open tundra, as a render. Render, not a photograph.
A pack with its simulated pass and fail cases beside it. Render, not a photograph.

Hardware · Next step

Need edge hardware that fits a power budget?

I design to the watt and say which numbers are datasheet, arithmetic or simulation.

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