Capabilities

  1. Build to withstand a nuke - I mean, not a direct hit obviously - would probably need a bigger case for that. But it is hardened against the effects of an Electromagnetic Pulse which is a side effect of a nuclear detonation. When the case is closed, it forms a complete conductive shell around the interior electronics. The interior of the case has a double layer of faraday fabric (held in place with rivets and conductive tape). The stock Pelican O-ring was replaced with a conductive gasket and the O-Ring slot was lined with faraday tape, and all potential weak spots were painted over with a water based Nickel conductive paint. Then, the interior was lined with Flex Seal (yeah that guy), to create a rubberized insulation layer, so the shielding isn’t shorted. Lastly, ferrite chokes were placed on many of the wires inside the case as a last line of defense. 
  2. Offline Information Library - Hundreds of GB of information saved to the hard drive (Wikipedia, Medical Cooking recipes, Ted Talks, WikiHow, etc.)  saved and served locally via Kiwix
  3. Offline Navigation and Positioning- World map tiles downloaded and working locally with the embedded GPS antenna
  4. Signals Intelligence - prebuild SDR apps (just swap antennas) 
    1. Aircraft tracking via ADSB & RTLSDR 
    2. Receive HighRes NOAA weather information and data via GOES geostationary satellites  
    3. AM/FM radio receiver
    4. Programmable Transmit capability with HackRF
  5. Offgrid Long Distance Communication - plug in HF antenna and use Digital modes like JS8Call to communicate cross country (potentially internationally) without relying on Cell infrastructure or even satellites.
  6. Battery & Power - Internal (12Ah) LiFePo4 battery much safer and longer lasting than Li Ion. 3 switchable Power domains to minimize power draw based on use case. Typical lasts >14 hours with no recharge. 
  7. Radiation detection - detection of radiation levels via Nukalert sensor
  8. Modest compute and extensibility - 2x Raspberry Pi 4Bs with 2x USB 3.0 ports

*Technical Specs moved to components. its a working list im actively updating*

System Design 

At a glance - Raspberry Pi v4 as the client, Raspberry Pi v5 as the server, and Teensy 4.1 acting as a microcontroller 

ClientPi:

  • Handles user interface operations, including keyboard inputs.
  • Developing a graphical user interface (GUI) for service control via MQTT.
  • Establishes direct connections with truSDX & Digirig through USB, with potential workload delegation to ServerPi.
  • Maintains a direct Ethernet connection to the server, bypassing the need for a router with a static IP address.

ServerPi:

  •  Main memory is 500GB SSD (NVMe) for boot data, map tiles, and file storage. 64GB SD card is utilized, with a dedicated 16GB section configured as swap memory to augment RAM (very useful for bypassing RAM bottleneck for OSRM ! -- more detail to come)
  • Orchestrates a master control process via MQTT, primarily functioning as a subordinate to ClientPi by managing micro-services within Docker containers for hardware flexibility.
  • Self-powered USB 3.0 hub within an AUX power domain

Teensy 4.1:

  • Integrated with a GPS receiver and streaming data to a TFT display. Plans to relay GPS coordinates to ServerPi for navigation.
  • Future expansions may include integrating an air quality sensor and additional sensors for enhanced functionality.

Software Services (air-gapped)

Controller*

  • Head honcho to run MQTT communication and logging.

Navigation

  •  Map tiles for the entire planet stored on the SSD. Downloaded for free with OpenStreetMaps! served
  • OSRM  US west coast (blocked by OOM when i tried any bigger  - yes even with 8Gb RAM and 16GB Swap mem). Provides point-to-point routing services for the US West Coast through OSRM.
  • ***[enters fantasy] 30cm-resolution satellite imagery [exits fantasy] 

Wiki

  • Running Kiwix server, to host >250GB of .zim files utilizing straight from the SSD

ADSB

  • Pretty...
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