Interface & Cartridge Architecture

Data and Communication Interfaces govern the exchange of digital information between components, Cartridges, Nodes, sensors, controllers, Building BIOS, Digital Twins, engineering tools, robots, and authorized external services.

Every digitally active component shall possess a unique identity. Network presence alone shall not establish trust or authorization.

Each Data Interface shall define:

physical or wireless communication medium;

addressing method;

discovery mechanism;

message structure;

units and coordinate conventions;

timing and synchronization;

update rate;

latency requirements;

bandwidth requirements;

data quality indicators;

authentication;

authorization;

encryption where required;

integrity verification;

error handling;

offline behavior;

version negotiation;

update and deprecation strategy.

Data shall be classified by meaning and authority. The interface shall distinguish among:

measured data;

calculated data;

commanded values;

configuration data;

limits;

warnings;

alarms;

historical records;

engineering evidence;

inferred or AI-generated information.

Every transmitted value shall include sufficient context to prevent misinterpretation. Depending upon the data type, this may include unit, timestamp, source identity, quality, uncertainty, coordinate system, calibration status, applicable configuration, and evidence class.

Safety-related commands and measurements shall not be carried as ordinary unverified data. Their communication path, latency, redundancy, authentication, failure response, and manual override requirements shall reflect their safety function.

Loss of communication shall result in a defined behavior. Components shall declare whether they continue operating, enter a degraded state, preserve the last safe command, shut down, isolate themselves, or request human intervention.

Interfaces shall support version negotiation where components from different generations may interact. An unsupported message, field, or capability shall not be silently interpreted as an accepted command.

Proprietary extensions may be permitted, but they shall not prevent access to the minimum standardized functions required for System05 interoperability.

The exact protocol stack, schemas, addressing format, cybersecurity profiles, and real-time communication classes remain TBD.