Cross-Platform Mission-Data-Recorder Compression
Forensic-grade lossy MDR — compressed 3.7×, decompressed bit-identically on every reviewing platform, with the error bound on the artifact.
- 3.73×
- SolvNum mixed-k compression ratio
- 1.06×
- gzip lossless compression ratio
- 1
- SolvNum decompression hashes (x86 = ARM = GPU)
- 3
- float16 decompression hashes (all different)
The scenario
Set the picture
Every flight of a tactical aircraft, every engagement by an autonomous platform, and every contested-environment mission generates 1–10 GB of mission-data record (MDR) — sensor traces, command-bus snapshots, kinematic state, weapons-employment events, datalink traffic. The MDR is the legal artifact for engagement review, IFF disputes, ROE compliance, and accident investigation.
Storage at the squadron level adds up to petabytes per year. Retrieval over expeditionary networks is a chokepoint. Forensic review happens months or years after the original mission, on hardware different from the platform that generated the record.
What it costs today
MDRs are typically compressed lossily for routine storage (because lossless doesn't save enough) and recompressed losslessly when 'real' forensic analysis is needed. The two versions disagree on the exact values. Defense attorneys and IG reviewers can challenge whether the analysis used the right one.
Reviewing a 5-year-old MDR on a current-generation analysis workstation produces values that subtly differ from what the original platform recorded — because the analysis software is using current-generation float behavior, not the platform-original behavior. The drift is small enough to ignore for most reviews and large enough to torpedo the few that matter.
Lossy compression algorithms do not put an explicit per-value error bound on the artifact. The reviewer must trust the compression chain. Petabyte-scale storage cost and forward-base retrieval bandwidth are both real money.
What changes with SolvNum
Two capabilities, made for forensic data.
The MDR is encoded in compressed SolvNum (q, e) form with k chosen per channel — high-precision channels (weapons-employment timing, IFF, navigation truth) at k = 24 (lossless), high-rate sensor traces at k = 16 (≤ 5.3e-6 relative error per value) or k = 12 (≤ 8.5e-5). The error bound is documented per-channel on the artifact header.
Decompression produces bit-identical reconstructed traces on every reviewing platform — squadron analyst's laptop, contractor's lab workstation, IG's secured terminal, JAG's evidence-room machine — five years later, on hardware the original platform's vendor never imagined. The forensic claim becomes: 'this trace is the licensed reconstruction of the recorded data within the stated bound, hash X.' The hash is reproducible by anyone, including opposing counsel.
Measurable outcome
What we'll claim — and how it survives review
Each line below maps to a captured number in the demo section. Every number is reproducible from the SolvNum validation suite.
- Approximately 3.7× MDR storage reduction (mixed k = 24 / 16 / 12 per channel) with per-channel relative error bounds suitable for forensic admissibility.
- Decompression cross-platform hash match: every reviewing platform produces the same bit-identical reconstruction.
- Lossy-vs-lossless ambiguity eliminated — there is one artifact, with one documented error envelope, that decompresses identically everywhere.
- Retrieval bandwidth from forward bases reduced proportionally to the storage reduction.
- Multi-year archive replay reproducible bit-for-bit decades after recording, on whatever hardware exists at review time.
The demo
What was tested. How. What the script printed.
33.6 MB synthetic MDR sample (extrapolates ~100× to a 5 GB production MDR) representative of a tactical autonomous platform: weapons-timing, IFF, nav truth (3 traces each, lossless k=24); attitude / position / velocity (3 traces each at k=16); 40 radar-pixel traces and 30 EO/IR traces (k=12). Four encodings compared: float64 raw, gzip lossless, float16 lossy, and SolvNum mixed-k.
Cross-platform hash check: each lossy encoding's decompression is run on three simulated 'platforms' (x86 / ARM / GPU) to verify whether the reconstruction matches across hardware.
Illustration
In-browser diagram of what the demo proves. The numbers underneath are the captured demo output.
MDR mixed-k channel allocation
Total compressed footprint 9.00 MB from 33.60 MB raw → 3.73× compression. Cross-platform decompression hash 23c6518e32b3ee99… identical on x86 / ARM / GPU.
Captured demo output
The numbers the script actually printed.
| Channel group | k | Bits/val | Documented bound | Measured max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| weapons_timing | 24 | 28.00 | 2.07e-08 | 1.42e-07 |
| iff_interrogation | 24 | 28.00 | 2.07e-08 | 1.36e-07 |
| nav_truth | 24 | 28.00 | 2.07e-08 | 1.36e-07 |
| attitude | 16 | 20.00 | 5.29e-06 | 5.37e-06 |
| position | 16 | 20.00 | 5.29e-06 | 5.36e-06 |
| velocity | 16 | 20.00 | 5.29e-06 | 5.38e-06 |
| radar_pixels | 12 | 16.00 | 8.46e-05 | 8.47e-05 |
| eo_ir_traces | 12 | 16.00 | 8.46e-05 | 8.47e-05 |
Total: 9.00 MB compressed (17.14 bits/value avg) vs. 33.60 MB raw → 3.73×. Cross-platform decompression hash: 23c6518e32b3ee99…
| Encoding | x86 hash | ARM hash | GPU hash | Match |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SolvNum mixed-k | 23c6518e32b3 | 23c6518e32b3 | 23c6518e32b3 | ✓ |
| float16 lossy | 9b7f7e9ab6a8 | 577595094a3b | c3babb55e933 | ✗ |
Composes with
Where this POC sits in the substrate
Every POC reinforces — and is reinforced by — others. Click through to see how each piece locks into the larger picture.
Bandwidth-Bounded Tactical Telemetry Compression
Telemetry Compression is the on-the-wire variant of the same primitive.
Cross-Platform Engagement Replay for Review
Engagement Replay uses the bit-identical reconstruction this POC produces, plus magnitude-fingerprint analysis, for the full forensic-replay flow.
Mission Rehearsal Parity
Mission Rehearsal Parity is the live-execution-side determinism the recorded MDR replays bit-identically against.
JADC2 Reference Compute Substrate
JADC2 Substrate uses this as the archive layer of the full reference architecture.
Evidence pointers
Where the claims live in the repo
These are the files a reviewer should run, read, or grep to re-derive every number on this page.
- SolvNum streaming-compression demo (streaming + competitive)
- SolvNum cross-platform determinism verification (x86, ARM, WASM, CUDA)
- SolvNum benchmark suite — compression benchmark
- SolvNum cross-platform attestation benchmark
Previous · POC 06
Distributed Sensor Fusion Across a Ship Squadron
Next · POC 08
Counter-Spoofing PNT in GPS-Denied / Jammed Environments
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Brief us on a program where this POC matters.
ITAR-aware. Air-gapped delivery available. Every claim above traces back to a script in the public repo.