Control System

Overview

Environmental monitoring is foundational to scientific management of any enclosed ecosystem.

What This System Is

Ecological Context

Environmental monitoring is foundational to scientific management of any enclosed ecosystem. Without confirmed temperature, humidity, dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity, and light data, ecological claims about organism response to conditions are hypotheses rather than verified facts. The Control System is the pathway by which hardware state can become ecological evidence: a temperature reading, verified against a known working sensor, taken at a known time, is the kind of datum that converts an ecological inference into a confirmed claim. Today the system measures air temperature and humidity in four terrestrial biomes and their atmospheres, coolant temperature in four heat exchangers, and water temperature in the two aquatic biomes. It does not measure dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity, or light. The distributed architecture of the Control System is designed for resilience at the biome level. Each ESP32 node owns its local loop: it reads its sensors, publishes telemetry to the MQTT broker, subscribes to setpoint updates where implemented, and regulates the local climate pump from the last known setpoint. If the broker, the Wyse server, or the Opal network is temporarily unavailable, each biome node continues its local regulation without interruption. The climate function does not depend on the network being up. The MQTT model separates concerns cleanly: the ESP32 owns local sensor reading, local display, and local pump control; higher-level software on the network owns setpoint publishing and telemetry logging. Telemetry can be monitored without interfering with hardware control, and hardware behavior does not require the software layer to be running. Local screens show temperatures in Fahrenheit, while the controllers record and send every temperature in Celsius so the website can offer both units.

What Is Confirmed

Six ESP32 controllers, one per biome, run PlatformIO/Arduino firmware built from one shared source.
Lakeshore, Prairie, Mangrove Forest and Marine Shore are full sensor nodes: biome and atmosphere temperature and humidity, heat-exchanger coolant temperature, two local displays, and local PWM climate-pump control.
Freshwater Lake and Seagrass Meadow have installed water-temperature probes and local displays, live since September 30, 2026, and accepted by Josue on October 7, 2026 as installed and running (operational acceptance; factory-calibrated DS18B20 probes, no separate calibration).
Seagrass Meadow's controller runs the Wave and Tide System and also reports tank water temperature; it is not a climate-pump node.
Each sensor node regulates its climate pump locally from the last known setpoint even when the network or broker is unavailable.
All six local screens show temperature in Fahrenheit since September 30, 2026; recorded and transmitted values remain Celsius.
The shared 12 V rail runs through six installed junction boxes, and every WAGO junction tested clean under load on July 21, 2026. The rail uses no grounding conductor.
Electronics boxes take 12 V through a barrel jack; aircraft-style connectors were tried and dropped in July 2026.
Sensors and displays plug into JST-PH connectors held in a vertical locking-tab mount in the enclosure wall, so they can be removed without opening the box.
Four control systems (Biomes 2-5) were installed with screens running by September 4, 2026; the Freshwater Lake and Seagrass Meadow control boxes were reported connected on September 30, 2026.
Air sensors are protected with G/flex two-part epoxy and a PTFE membrane over the sensing area; this superseded the July 2026 silicone plan.
Prairie's replacement atmosphere sensor was potted, installed, tested and accepted on October 14, 2026.
Failing Cat5 harnesses are replaced rather than repaired.
Neither the wave controller nor the Wyse computer reliably restarts on its own after a power interruption.

Active Tensions

Fall sensing goal not yet met: the Fall 2026 plan's first gate is reliable sensing and stable telemetry in all six biomes with all six control systems operational. Most of the physical work is done by Josue's reports, but as of October 14, 2026 Prairie's biome sensor and coolant probe still need repair, and no per-sensor accuracy check has been recorded. Temperature or humidity readings should not be treated as confirmed ecological evidence without knowing which sensors are working.

Aquatic water temperature is new and partly private: Freshwater Lake and Seagrass Meadow, the two biomes with the least sensing history, now report water temperature. It is kept in the telemetry history but is not yet part of the public website data until a public display is agreed. Calibration details were not recorded, so water readings support trends better than precise values.

Recovery after power loss: a brief outage can stop the wave and leave the Wyse computer off until someone switches it on, which also interrupts telemetry recording. No fix has been chosen.

Harness standard still open: old Cat5 harnesses are being retired on failure, but the replacement wire type and connector layout are still being worked out, so the wiring is a mix of old and new.

Deployed sensor model: current deployed hardware is SHT31-D.