An address for a moment in spacetime.
The same place can hold different events. AEA explores how to describe where something happened, when it happened, and the reference frame that makes those coordinates meaningful.
Explore how it works ↓Explore the project
Open the design and demonstrations, then follow the references for more detail.
Explore the concept
An interactive 4D coordinate simulator that converts latitude, longitude, altitude, and epoch into an AEA coordinate token, complete with interactive spatial-temporal boundary verification.
The design, in more detail
Definition
A proposed coordinate encoding system that combines geospatial coordinates, elevation, and high-precision UTC epochs into a single immutable, human-parseable spatial address string.
The problem
Contemporary address systems are fragmented: street addresses rely on subjective geopolitical conventions; GPS coordinates define static points in 2D space without altitude or chronological permanence; and time is treated as an external metadata field. There is no universal, compact standard for declaring where and when a specific occurrence took place in spacetime.
The approach
The Abrams Event Address unifies 4-dimensional coordinates (X, Y, Z, T) into a hierarchical quadkey with a temporal epoch suffix. By interleaving bitwise geospatial bounds with microsecond UTC timestamps, an AEA string can pinpoint an incident, legal deposition, autonomous sensor event, or astronomical observation with reproducible cryptographic precision.
How it works
- Geodetic Projection: Computes latitude and longitude normalized to WGS 84 ellipsoid boundaries.
- Spatial Subdivision: Employs a modified Hilbert space-filling curve to maintain topological locality.
- Elevation Quantization: Encodes vertical distance relative to mean sea level (MSL) with metric precision.
- Temporal Interleaving: Appends a 64-bit microsecond-resolution ISO-epoch hash for temporal immutability.
- Checksum Verification: Employs a Reed-Solomon derived checksum preventing transcription error during manual inspection.
- NASA cFS Flight Integration: Compiles via bare-metal #![no_std] Rust into a zero-heap static library (libaea_core.a) with packed aea_cfs_msg.h C-ABI message structures for direct NASA Core Flight System telemetry bus integration.
Project notes
- Wire Standard
- AEA-STATE/1 (136 Bytes)
- Memory Model
- Zero Heap (#![no_std])
- Time Standard
- TAI Continuous Atomic Time
- Central Bodies
- NAIF 399 Earth · 301 Moon · 499 Mars
These are the project’s documented design notes. Consult the linked implementation and its version before relying on a specific capability.
Development history & next steps
Concept Inception
Identified fundamental indexing gaps while designing tamper-evident audit logs for legal evidence.
Mathematical Formalization
Derived Hilbert-curve projection equations and altitude quantization algorithms.
C-ABI & Embedded Flight Spec
Built zero-allocation packed C-ABI header and static library for embedded integration.
AEA-STATE/1 Open Publication
Published open-source 136-byte wire standard, C header, Python CLI, and browser inspector under MIT/Apache-2.0.
What comes next
Publishing reference cFS and ROS 2 communication adapters while formalizing the open specification RFC.
Source material & related links
Follow the documentation, repositories, and related sites behind this project.
Zero-heap #![no_std] Rust library, C-ABI include/aea.h, and wire specification (ICD.md).
Browser verification tool executing Bowring geodesy inverse and SHA-256 seal verification via WebCrypto.
Complete 12-chapter technical knowledge base, 7-vector interactive simulator, and offline standalone downloads.
Comprehensive architectural draft detailing coordinate frames, time scales, and canonicalization invariants.
Engineering dossier, verification matrix, C-ABI state record details, and flight bus integration notes.
Topics: Spacetime · Coordinate Systems · Cryptography · Invention · Algorithms · Embedded C-ABI · Telemetry