CHLORA Autonomous Control Plane
Cultivation, Health, Logistics & Response Automation. The reasoning tier of the facility: it ingests the full telemetry stream, predicts plant and containment state, and — within bounded authority — acts to keep the collection alive and contained.
1. Overview
CHLORA closes the observation–decision–actuation loop. It subscribes to MDF streams from the PhytoSense Mesh and Spectral Canopy Array, maintains a live digital twin of every zone and vault, and issues control packets back through the fabric under the 8 ms control SLA. It is an assistant, not a sovereign: every action is bounded by guardrails and, at the highest grades, gated on a human.
2. Capabilities
Growth Optimization
Per-cultivar setpoint scheduling for light spectrum, VPD, CO₂, and nutrient dosing against species growth models.
Anomaly & Prediction
Detects stress signatures (turgor collapse, fluorescence drop, VOC spikes) and forecasts decline 6–48 h ahead.
Resource Orchestration
Schedules pollinator drone tasking, hydro-loop balancing, and field-tech dispatch under SOP.
Containment Automation
Drives lockdown interlocks and mitigation sequences on alarm — within authority tier and guardrails.
3. Control Loops
| Loop | Controlled Variable | Setpoint Band | Cycle | Actuators |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climate | VPD / leaf-temp / CO₂ | VPD ±0.08 kPa; CO₂ 380–450 ppm | 5 s | HVAC, foggers, CO₂ dosers, spectral lights |
| Irrigation | Soil/root moisture, NDWI, turgor | turgor 380–520 kPa | 30 s | Drip zones, nutrient mixers, hydro valves |
| Containment | Vault Δp, VOC, motion | Δp −15 to −40 Pa (neg.) | 1 s | Pressure dampers, scrubbers, interlocks |
Each loop is a constrained PID-plus-model-predictive hybrid; setpoints originate from cultivar growth models and are clamped by the guardrails in §5. Containment loop integrity is the highest priority and cannot be preempted by cultivation loops.
4. Decision / Automation Tiers
Every action CHLORA can take is pre-classified into one of four authority tiers. The tier sets whether a human must approve before execution.
| Tier | Mode | Example | Human-in-Loop |
|---|---|---|---|
| T0 — Advisory | Recommend only | Suggest nutrient recipe change | Operator must apply |
| T1 — Autonomous (reversible) | Act + log | Trim VPD, adjust light spectrum | Post-hoc review |
| T2 — Autonomous (gated) | Act, notify, 60 s veto window | Re-task drone swarm, hydro rebalance | Zone Lead can veto |
| T3 — Supervised | Stage, require approval | GCL-3/4 lockdown, toxin reactor stop | Duty Manager / CBO must confirm |
5. Guardrails & Override Authority
- Hard limits — all actuator commands are clamped to physical safe ranges enforced by Climate/Power & Hydro interlocks independent of CHLORA.
- Rate limits — no setpoint may move > 10%/min; sudden large moves require T3.
- GCL gating — any action affecting a GCL-3/GCL-4 specimen is T3 by default.
- Two-key — toxin reactor stop/start requires two authorized confirmations.
- Audit — every decision, input snapshot, and confidence score is written to the MDF hash-chained log.
6. Model / Inference Notes
| Component | Approach | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Digital twin | Physics + data-driven hybrid per zone | State estimation via Kalman fusion of mesh + canopy |
| Anomaly detection | Streaming residual + isolation ensemble | Per-channel; 2σ trust-gate against cross-sensors |
| Forecasting | Gradient-boosted + temporal model | 6–48 h decline horizon, recalibrated nightly |
| Decision policy | Constrained MPC + rule guardrails | Confidence score gates autonomy tier promotion |
| Inference siting | On-prem GPU cluster, Sub-Level 2/4 cores | No external dependency for control-path inference |
Models are revalidated annually against a gold-standard agronomy panel (see Engineering maintenance cadence). A decision below 0.80 confidence auto-demotes to T0 advisory and notifies ENG-NOC.