The method
A detector that beeps is easy to build. A detector that stays quiet when there is an explanation is the real problem. All of Omni-Core is organized around that idea.
The Correlator
Mission profile
One question at startup: “Is the building powered? Yes / No / Partially”. In a powered building, a 60 Hz signature is classified as an electrical source. In a building declared unpowered, the same signature becomes a major anomaly — “electrical signature in an unpowered building, check”.
Automatic calibration
The device detects on its own that it is moving (characteristic co-variation of the signals), displays “moving — stabilizing…” and learns the room’s signature in ~45 s once still: mean and variability of every sensor. Verdicts are suspended during stabilization — an accepted trade-off. A named room reloads its signature instantly on return.
Detection and correlation
An event is a significant deviation from the learned signature (z-score), never an absolute threshold. Events from all sensors are cross-checked within a sliding window of about 3 seconds. Frequency analysis of the magnetometer isolates the power-grid signature (60 Hz and harmonics).
The three verdicts
| Verdict | Reading | Reaction |
|---|---|---|
| 🟢 Draft | temperature drop + moving air | information |
| 🟠 Electrical source | magnetic fluctuation with 60 Hz, stable temperature | identified, classified |
| 🔴 Unexplained anomaly | magnetic fluctuation without 60 Hz + temperature drop + still air | alert + haptics |
Every verdict carries a confidence score weighted by the size of the deviations, adjustable in Expert mode.
The self-interference guard
The first suspect is the device itself. It logs its own state — CPU load, Wi-Fi activity, screen, fan — alongside the sensors. Any event coinciding with a spike of internal activity is flagged “probable internal origin” and excluded from the score. Sentinel detections feed the same mechanism: “electronic presence — probable human cause”.
A.R.V.A. v2 — never manufacture pareidolia
v1 fed continuous radio noise into a transcription engine: a machine for hallucinating words, the opposite of the product’s promise. v2 reverses the order:
- Detect — on the acoustic and demodulated-RF channels, look for events (voice-band energy standing out from calibrated noise, formant structure, repeated patterns); voice-activity detector on the acoustic side.
- Correlate — an audio event has no status until cross-checked with the other sensors in the Correlator’s window.
- Transcribe last — only on segments that passed the first two stages, and always labelled: grey = uncorroborated interpretation, green = physically corroborated.
An RF event on a broadcast frequency is flagged “probable source: broadcasting”. Accepted trade-off: fewer words than a classic spirit box — but every displayed word is traceable in the black box.
The black box
Permanent ring buffer. Every alert saves the raw data of all sensors, the audio and the thermal + NoIR videos over ±10 seconds. Every alert is provable or refutable after the mission. AES-256 encrypted logs.
The success test
In a test room, the device must correctly distinguish a provoked draft, a powered-on electrical appliance, and only flag an anomaly if no natural cause is measured. Phase 1 exit criterion: three scenarios classified correctly 9 times out of 10. Nothing else gets built before that.