COMPASS_zafppV2

Project information

The Coherent Orchestration of Microcontroller, Python, and Sensor Systems (COMPASS) is an open-source, minimalist framework designed for high-performance scientific instrumentation and real-time telemetry. Developed at the Sensors and Advanced Instrumentation Laboratory (SAIL) as a responsive alternative to proprietary systems like LabVIEW, the architecture prioritizes deterministic performance and low-latency data acquisition. The hardware-to-software interface utilizes non-blocking C++ state machines on microcontrollers, leveraging millis()-based timing to ensure continuous sensor monitoring and command responsiveness. This is supported by an asynchronous Python backend using FastAPI and WebSockets, which employs dedicated background serial threads to route sub-millisecond telemetry without blocking the main event loop. The user interface is built exclusively with native Vanilla JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3 to achieve frictionless agility and high-speed visualization by eliminating the abstraction overhead and computational latency inherent in heavy third-party frameworks.

Foundation for Zebrafish Automated Feeder Plus Plus (ZAF++) Project V2 - based on COMPASS Stack.