★ N.I.C. ★
QUAKE is an open hardware reference design for a distributed seismograph network. Each node is a sealed, self-contained unit designed to be installed permanently in rock, building foundations, etc. — potted in polyurethane casting compound, connected by a waterproof M12 connector, and left alone for years.
The project grew out of a simple frustration: existing approaches either cost a fortune (geophones), require precise mechanical installation, or compensate for cheap noisy sensors with mountains of software. QUAKE takes the opposite approach — spend more on hardware, get clean data from the start, keep the software simple.
- Costs as much as the entire QUAKE node
- Poor low-frequency response — steep gain drop below resonance, requiring complex correction amplifiers with phase errors
- Three separate units needed for three axes
- Requires precise levelling and mechanical installation
- The proof mass must be heavy for sensitivity, but heavy means low resonant frequency and easy excitation
- Parasitic capacitance to enclosure walls changes with temperature, humidity, and geometry
- Result: unstable signal that reflects enclosure conditions, not seismic activity
MEMS proof mass is microscopic — resonance is in the kHz range, seismics are below 20 Hz. They never interfere. The sensor is hermetically sealed on a single silicon die, factory calibrated, digital output, three axes in one package. One chip replaces three geophones at a fraction of the cost.
No bubble levels. No adjustment screws. No precise mechanical alignment.
Drop the unit into a hole in the rock, send a calibration command, and the processor records the current sensor state as the reference zero. The gravitational vector automatically defines absolute orientation — Z axis perpendicular to Earth's core, regardless of physical orientation. A transformation matrix handles the rest.
All nodes share a single physical clock distributed by the master over the second RS-485 pair. This is not software timestamping or NTP — it is a real clock signal on a wire. All nodes are phase-locked to the master. Timing uncertainty is in nanoseconds, not milliseconds.
Standard UTP Cat 6 cable, four pairs — two for RS-485 data and clock, two for power. Daisy-chain topology, each node has two M12 IP68 connectors (in and out), termination resistors only at each end of the line. Up to 8 nodes per segment.
Each sensor uses one SPI interface from the MCU with its own Chip Select pin. A universal PCB accommodates all three sensor positions — unused sensors are simply not populated. Firmware auto-detects which sensors are present at startup via SPI probing. No recompilation needed.
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| HARDWARE.md | Component selection with rationale |
| SOFTWARE.md | Communication architecture, sync protocol, data stack |
| LICENSE | MIT — software |
| LICENSE-HW | CERN-OHL-S v2 — hardware |
QUAKE uses the NIC software ecosystem for data storage and transport:
| Layer | Library | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | NIC-DMD | Adaptive compression, no lookup tables, runs on ATmega328 |
| Storage | NIC-MLA | Single-file container, crash-safe, self-describing |
| Transport encryption | NIC-KSF | SPECK-128 CTR, in-place, no malloc |
| Write glue | NIC-GLUE-IN | Sensor data → DMD → MLA |
| Read/export | NIC-GLUE-OUT | MLA → CSV / SQLite |
| Desktop viewer | NIC-VDE | Browse MLA files like a directory, export to CSV/SQL |
Firmware: portable core complete and host-tested (v0.5.0) — sensor drivers (with per-sensor die temperature and runtime range control), auto-detection, axis calibration, the RS-485 link and the node state machine, all unit-tested off-target; the STM32 board layer is written and awaits the board. Hardware: reference design defined, schematics in progress. PCB and field testing are next.
Contributions welcome — hardware, firmware, or software.
Hardware: CERN-OHL-S v2 — Copyright (c) 2026 NIC — Native Intellect Community
Software: MIT License — Copyright (c) 2026 NIC — Native Intellect Community
Brother for advice during the development of this project. For technical assistance with code optimisation, to AI assistants Claude (Anthropic) and Gemini (Google).
★ Viva La Resistánce ★