Unified Signal Object · USO

The atomic unit of operational intelligence.

Every measurable event entering UFIS becomes a structured intelligence object — a Unified Signal Object. This is the starting point of the entire UFIS architecture and one of the most important differentiators in the patent position.

Anatomy of a USO

A signal is never just a value

Where traditional systems store a number, UFIS stores a fully-contextualised intelligence object — its origin, time, location, trust, governance, relationships and coherence contribution.

USOUNIFIED SIGNAL OBJECTOriginTimestampLocationDomainTrust ScoreConfidenceGovernanceRelationshipsCoherenceHistory
01 / 10
Origin

Source system or environment that produced the signal.

How Information Enters UFIS

From source system to governed signal

UFIS ingests from any measurable source, in any mode, and converts every inbound item into a Unified Signal Object before intelligence services act on it. Communication is bidirectional and every signal carries an access model.

Information enters UFIS through a governed ingestion pathway. Every inbound item is attributed, validated and converted into a Unified Signal Object before any intelligence service acts upon it — so provenance, trust and governance travel with the signal for its entire lifecycle.

01
Source system
Enterprise, industrial, sensor, document or human input.
02
Connector / adapter
Layer 3 connector, API, stream subscription or upload.
03
Ingestion
Batch, streaming, event-driven, scheduled or on-demand.
04
Validation
Schema, quality, completeness and provenance checks.
05
USO conversion
Conversion into a Unified Signal Object with full attribution.
06
Governance tagging
Classification, sensitivity, residency and authority.
07
Coordination fabric
Layer 0 routes the signal to intelligence services.
Sources UFIS can ingest
Enterprise applications (ERP, CRM, EAM, ITSM, HR, finance)
Industrial and operational systems (SCADA, historians, control systems)
IoT sensors, gateways and edge devices
Imagery, video, audio and remote sensing
Documents, records and unstructured content
External and public data (weather, market, regulatory, geospatial)
Partner and supply-chain systems
Human input, inspections and field observations
Ingestion modes
Streaming
Continuous real-time event flow from live sources.
Event-driven
Signals emitted when a defined condition or change occurs.
Batch
Periodic bulk transfer of accumulated records.
Scheduled
Time-based extraction on a defined operational cadence.
On-demand
Query or request-triggered retrieval from a source system.
Edge-local
Processing and filtering at the point of measurement.

UFIS communication is bidirectional. Signals flow inbound from connected systems, and governed instructions, recommendations and coordination messages flow back outbound — always subject to authority, policy and, where required, human approval.

Recommendations returned to operational systems
Work orders, tasks and service requests
Configuration or setpoint adjustments, where authorised
Alerts and notifications to people and applications
Status, acknowledgement and outcome confirmations
Federation messages to other UFIS nodes

Automated outbound action is permitted only where the deployment's governance configuration explicitly authorises it.

Interactive Walkthrough

Watch an event become governed intelligence

Step through a single rainfall forecast as it enters UFIS, becomes a Unified Signal Object, is trusted, related, predicted, governed, acted upon — and returns as an outcome feedback event that improves the next signal.

Worked example · rainfall forecast → governed action → outcome
L3 · Enterprise Integration

Raw event arrives

Meteorological service publishes a severe-rainfall forecast for the Pilbara operating region.

A connector at Layer 3 receives the source payload. At this point it is an ordinary vendor record — a number, a place and a time. It carries no trust weighting, no relationships and no governance classification.

Lifecycle
inbound
Trust
Governance
unclassified
The object, as it stands
3 attributes
source.payloadrain_mm_24h = 84
source.region"PIL-NW-04"
source.issued2026-08-04T21:00Z
EventUSOGovernedIntelligenceActionOutcomeBack to event

Illustrative scenario. Values shown are examples of the attributes a Unified Signal Object may carry, not results from a live deployment.

Why This Matters

Unrelated systems can now participate together

Property 01
Common representation
A satellite observation can be compared with a weather forecast, freight schedule or commodity price — because all become USOs.
Property 02
Trust & provenance
Every USO carries trust score, confidence weighting, and governance classification. Critical for defence, emergency services and regulated industries.
Property 03
Lifecycle awareness
Signals evolve: new → validated → related → expired. UFIS treats intelligence as a living object, not a static row.
Foundation of the patent position

The USO is what makes everything else possible.

Without a common intelligence representation, coordination is impossible. Every downstream capability — relationships, causality, coherence, prediction, orchestration — flows from this single architectural decision.