{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp12_substrate_denial72_20260805","cell_id":"pareto_frontier_navigation__computer_science","arm":"CONSTRAINED_HIGH","candidate_id":"pareto_frontier_navigation__computer_science__CONSTRAINED_HIGH","decision":"PROPOSAL","abstention_reason":null,"proposal":{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp12_substrate_denial72_20260805","cell_id":"pareto_frontier_navigation__computer_science","arm":"CONSTRAINED_HIGH","candidate_id":"pareto_frontier_navigation__computer_science__CONSTRAINED_HIGH","proposal_index":1,"version":0,"title":"Frontier-Keyed Passive Power Board for Intermittent Microcontrollers","problem":"An energy-harvesting microcontroller can enter repeated brownout-and-reboot cycles when its storage capacitance and analog power-supervisor thresholds are chosen independently. The feasible hardware settings trade shorter recharge-to-start time against sufficient stored energy and voltage margin to finish useful computation. A freely configurable board also permits settings that are worse than another setting on both restart time and completed-work reliability.","actors":["Embedded-system hardware designer","Energy-harvesting microcontroller","Passive capacitor bank","Analog undervoltage supervisor","Frontier-keyed conductive slider","Intermittent energy source","Fixed diagnostic workload"],"observable_state":"Directly measurable states are capacitor voltage over time, supervisor enable and reset transitions, time from available harvested energy to processor release, brownout count, and whether a fixed workload reaches its externally observable completion pulse before voltage falls below the safe threshold.","consequence":"A dominated capacitance-threshold pairing can delay restart without providing compensating completion margin, or can release the processor early enough to cause repeated incomplete executions. Either condition wastes harvested energy and reduces dependable computational progress.","affected_objective":"The coupled objectives are shorter time-to-first-compute and greater probability of completing a fixed computation before brownout, subject to component voltage, current, size, and stored-energy safety limits.","intervention":"Build a passive electromechanical configuration board containing a capacitor ladder, an analog undervoltage-supervisor resistor ladder, and a shaped conductive slider. Each slider detent simultaneously connects one capacitance and one start/stop-threshold pair. The contact geometry exposes only empirically characterized non-dominated pairings; electrically feasible but dominated cross-pairings have no reachable contact position. Moving the unpowered slider traverses the physical tradeoff frontier, while a tactile knee detent identifies the measured region after which additional completion margin requires a disproportionately longer recharge. Once positioned, the selected capacitors and analog thresholds directly govern energy accumulation and processor release without software, analytics, or continuing procedural enforcement.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Option Set","domain_realization":"The physically realizable slider detents, each hard-wiring one capacitor-bank size and one analog supervisor threshold pair."},{"archetype_element":"Objective Dimensions","domain_realization":"Measured recharge-to-release time and fixed-workload completion before brownout; component stress and stored-energy limits are feasibility guardrails rather than tradable objectives."},{"archetype_element":"Feasibility Constraints","domain_realization":"PCB spacing, capacitor voltage ratings, supervisor operating range, maximum stored energy, and target-processor safe-voltage limits determine which contacts may exist."},{"archetype_element":"Dominance Criterion","domain_realization":"A detent is dominated if another feasible detent has no longer measured recharge-to-release time and no lower workload-completion rate under the same harvested-energy traces, with at least one difference exceeding predefined measurement uncertainty."},{"archetype_element":"Frontier Map","domain_realization":"The ordered physical detent track embodies the retained non-dominated settings; its position is a material map from fast-start/low-reserve settings to slow-start/high-reserve settings."},{"archetype_element":"Preference or Priority Rule","domain_realization":"The designer selects a detent according to the target device's declared preference for faster availability or greater completion margin; the passive board does not pretend that non-dominance determines this value choice."},{"archetype_element":"Knee Point Indicator","domain_realization":"A distinct mechanical notch marks a candidate balance region derived from bench measurements, without preventing selection of other frontier detents."},{"archetype_element":"Recheck Trigger","domain_realization":"A changed processor, workload, harvester, capacitor lot, temperature range, or measured frontier requires a newly keyed slider plate rather than silently treating the old geometry as valid."},{"archetype_element":"Implementation Commitment Record","domain_realization":"The installed slider position and keyed plate identifier remain physically inspectable on the board even if labels, databases, and reports are removed."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"dominance_screening","role":"Bench measurements determine which feasible capacitance-threshold pairs receive physical contacts; pairs clearly worse on both objectives are omitted from the keyed plate.","counterfactual_removal":"If dominated pairs receive ordinary contacts, the board becomes a free-form selector and loses the archetype's physical elimination of inferior combinations."},{"mechanism_slug":"pareto_frontier_analysis","role":"The retained settings are ordered by their measured fast-start versus completion-margin tradeoff and encoded as adjacent detents.","counterfactual_removal":"Without identifying the non-dominated set before fabricating the contact geometry, the detent track cannot defensibly represent a frontier."},{"mechanism_slug":"tradeoff_curve_visualization","role":"Slider travel provides a tangible spatial representation of movement from one objective extreme toward the other.","counterfactual_removal":"The electrical settings could still work, but the user would lose the inspectable correspondence between movement and sacrifice along the retained set."},{"mechanism_slug":"knee_point_analysis","role":"A tactile notch offers a nonbinding candidate where marginal recharge delay begins increasing sharply relative to added completion margin.","counterfactual_removal":"Removing the notch leaves the frontier detents and their electrical effects intact but removes the proposed pragmatic reference point."},{"mechanism_slug":"scenario_sensitivity_sweep","role":"The keyed plate is accepted only if dominance classifications remain outside measurement uncertainty across the bounded harvested-energy and temperature conditions used for the target device.","counterfactual_removal":"A setting could be falsely excluded because apparent dominance depended on one trace or temperature; the physical board would still operate but its frontier claim would be inadequately supported."}],"causal_chain":["A marginal energy source charges the capacitance selected by the slider's physical contacts.","The chosen capacitance determines stored energy and contributes to recharge duration through ordinary electrical charge accumulation.","The same slider position selects resistor ratios that set the analog supervisor's start and stop thresholds.","The analog supervisor holds the processor in reset until the selected start threshold is reached and returns it to reset at the selected low threshold.","Capacitance and hysteresis jointly determine how quickly computation begins and how much energy and voltage margin remain for the fixed workload.","The keyed contact geometry makes only characterized non-dominated pairings electrically reachable, eliminating dominated compromises without runtime computation.","The chosen frontier detent therefore produces the selected physical sacrifice profile whenever power cycles occur."],"baseline":"The baseline is a conventional prototype with independent capacitor jumpers and threshold-resistor jumpers. It allows every cross-combination, including pairings that may be dominated, and gives no physical distinction between avoidable compromise and a genuine fast-start-versus-completion tradeoff.","nearest_rivals":["A single conservatively oversized storage capacitor and fixed supervisor threshold","A fully populated two-dimensional jumper matrix followed by manual bench comparison","Firmware checkpointing or restart logic","Software-controlled dynamic voltage or frequency management","An adaptive digital energy-management controller","A fixed analog hysteretic supervisor selected without frontier screening"],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"Relative to an unrestricted jumper matrix, the candidate physically prevents access to measured dominated capacitance-threshold pairings while retaining multiple non-dominated tradeoff settings. Relative to firmware or a digital energy controller, the processor-release and energy-reserve effects arise from capacitance, contact geometry, and analog voltage thresholds even when all computation and reporting wrappers are absent. The proposal does not establish that the encoded set is complete or that its knee is preferable for any particular deployment.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"A qualified embedded-hardware engineer may authorize fabrication and benchtop energization; deployment authority remains with the owner of the target device and its applicable electrical-safety process.","authorized_first_step":"Fabricate one current-limited low-voltage bench coupon with a replaceable keyed plate, characterize a bounded matrix of capacitor and supervisor settings against prerecorded source traces using a fixed load pulse, and compare reachable detents with the measured non-dominated set.","excluded_actions":["Connection to mains power","Use in medical, life-safety, transportation-control, or other safety-critical equipment","Field deployment","Use with rechargeable cells or capacitor voltages outside component ratings","Changing target firmware to manufacture a favorable result","Treating the tactile knee as an automatic deployment decision"],"halt_rollback":"Stop on component heating, voltage overshoot, unstable supervisor oscillation outside the test envelope, damaged capacitance, or a supposedly omitted setting that is not dominated beyond uncertainty. De-energize the coupon, discharge it through the fitted resistor, return the slider to the isolated position, and replace or re-key the removable plate; no target hardware must be permanently modified."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"Across repeated source traces and temperatures, the alleged dominated settings may become non-dominated, or the keyed detents may fail to span a genuine tradeoff because one setting is best on both restart time and completion. Either result defeats the proposed frontier encoding.","problem_falsifier":"The problem is falsified for the selected workload and source envelope if independent capacitance-threshold choices do not produce repeated incomplete executions or any dominated feasible pair beyond measurement uncertainty.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified if a physically omitted pairing proves non-dominated, if a reachable detent is dominated by another feasible pairing, or if slider contact resistance and parasitics materially change the ranking so the fabricated track no longer represents the measured frontier.","risks":["False dominance from noisy or nonrepresentative energy traces","Omission of a relevant objective such as capacitor aging, leakage, mass, or wake-up correctness","Contact resistance, bounce, or contamination altering electrical behavior","Unsafe stored charge or component overstress","A frontier plate becoming invalid after a processor, workload, component, or environmental change","Users mistaking the knee notch for an objectively optimal choice","Too many objectives causing nearly every setting to remain non-dominated"]},"next_evidence_step":"On a current-limited extra-low-voltage bench, test no more than 16 capacitance-threshold pairings under three fixed harvested-energy traces and two temperatures, with repeated trials sufficient to estimate measurement variation. Construct the dominance relation using predeclared uncertainty margins, then verify whether one removable contact plate can expose every retained setting and exclude every clearly dominated setting without changing the target workload.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Not assessed against other candidates because runtime isolation forbids inspecting them. Internally, the concept is distinguished from software multiobjective optimization by encoding a bounded frontier into passive electromechanical reachability and analog power behavior.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Construct one causally defensible computer-science candidate under the binding substrate constraint","Preserve feasibility, dominance filtering, frontier navigation, explicit preference, and recheck structure","Provide bounded falsifiable evidence and safety steps"],"conceptual_changes":["Initial version; translated frontier navigation into a physically keyed intermittent-computing power configuration."],"operational_changes":["Initial version; limited evaluation to an extra-low-voltage current-limited bench coupon and a bounded setting matrix."],"evidence_changes":["No prior-art evidence used; all performance and frontier claims remain hypotheses for direct measurement."],"claim_changes":["No novelty, prevalence, demand, or effect-size claim is made."]},"substrate_contract":{"primary_allowed_process":"HYBRID_OTHER_ALLOWED_PRIMARY","counterfactual_independence":"The essential effect is produced by electrical energy storage, analog voltage comparison and hysteresis, conductive contact geometry, and mechanical exclusion of disallowed settings. If all software, algorithms, databases, dashboards, reports, incentives, permissions, reviews, workflows, training, and procedural enforcement are removed after the plate is fabricated and positioned, the selected capacitance still accumulates charge, the analog supervisor still gates processor power state at physical voltage thresholds, and omitted contact combinations remain electrically unreachable.","forbidden_channel_audit":"The candidate contains no runtime solver, model, database, recommender, digital control loop, or analytics-dependent sensor. Measurement instruments are used only during bounded characterization and falsification; they do not create the deployment effect. Labels and rationale records may support interpretation but are not required for charge storage, voltage-threshold switching, or mechanical exclusion. Human authority controls safe testing and the value choice among detents, but continuing authorization or procedural compliance is not what causes the electrical behavior."}}}