Universal · the anchored plan
A building begins with the way it is drawn. The precision of that drawing decides everything that follows.
Our role
Universal is the IoT anchoring layer that sits on top of existing CAD and BIM tools. We read what designers already produce (AutoCAD DWG, ArchiCAD IFC, Revit RVT, SketchUp SKP, Rhino 3DM, SolidWorks STEP) and we consolidate it into a single coherent IFC 4.3 model. On that frozen model, we anchor every sensor and actuator through Pset_SentinelAnchors, indexed by IfcGuid. We are not a BIM authoring competitor. We are the layer that turns a drawing into a living nervous system, bridging MERIDIAN to the operations runtime.
Why a Plan before a Brain
A seismic accelerometer bolted onto a wall is useless until it is tied to the precise IfcBeam it rests on. An NFPA smoke-extraction cascade remains an intention until it is anchored to a fire zone declared in the BIM. An insurance Risk Score remains a fuzzy figure until it is tied to precise floor areas and disciplines. Everything Sentinel will do over the next thirty years depends on how precisely we freeze the anchored plan on the day it is handed over.
The conversation between the four platforms
Universal freezes the anchored plan. Sentinel runs the 24/7 operations tower on top of it. Urban listens to the regional membrane around it, climate, seismology, satellites, grid, transport. Smart hub orchestrates the conversation and shows the public showcase. MERIDIAN, the Rust runtime underneath, translates between IFC, AAS, W3C WoT, Brick, Haystack, SAREF, SOSA/SSN, CityGML and IndoorGML, plus 22 industrial protocols. When Sentinel detects that an acoustic wall measures thirty-eight decibels instead of the forty-five specified, it sends the observation back to Universal. We record it as an IfcAnnotation on the frozen model, and it survives every later re-freeze. When an architect reopens the project five years from now to refurbish it, the annotation is still there, anchored to the wall, readable.
Fourteen disciplines, one workspace
Architecture, structure, fluids, electrical, fire safety, façade, acoustics, thermal, lifts, landscape, internal mobility, security, building management, operations. Each one has its own model version, its own rights, its own deliverables. But they all coexist inside the same Common Data Environment. No more contradictory files shuttling over FTP. No more forgotten version sitting on a workstation. Every modification is traced, every clash between disciplines is caught before it turns into a site dispute.
KSIA Riyadh, our public demonstrator
King Salman International Airport in Riyadh is the demonstrator we use to show the entire chain end to end. ICAO OEKS, IATA RUH, Code 4F. Six runways arranged in three parallel pairs, four terminals (T1 Saudia hub, T2 domestic and low-cost, T3 international, T4 Hajj surge), fifteen satellites, a 57 km² site, 1 480 IfcSpace and 14 308 anchored sensors. Its frozen IFC lives with Universal, its operational runtime with Sentinel, its regional context with Urban, its orchestration with Smart hub. KSIA lets us demonstrate the full loop, from IFC freeze through sub-2-second Rego cascades to eIDAS-signed claim packs, without depending on a live project under NDA.
The standards we respect
SBC 301 for the Saudi Building Code structural and seismic provisions, our default for the KSIA demonstrator. The European Eurocodes one, two, three, five, eight for projects under that jurisdiction. IBC and NFPA for safety. RE2020 for energy performance in France. ICAO Annex 14, IATA ADRM 12 and GACA SR for aviation. IFC 4.3 as the canonical exchange format. BCF 3.0 for coordination remarks. Brick Schema and Project Haystack for the ontology. None of these standards is invented. None is paraphrased for appearance. When an SBC 301 calculation says a structural node must hold, it holds.
Our commitment
Zero shortcuts. Zero invented APIs to ship faster. Zero mocks that linger past a demo. If an SBC or Eurocode norm exists, we read it before writing the line of code. If a format is undocumented, we document our interpretation and we attach it to the project, so that those who come after can read it. Tests live in the same commit as the code. The frozen IFC is signed. The handover to Sentinel is a versioned event that can be replayed ten years from now.