MāyāPramāṇa
Universal Quantum Sensor Controller · 2026–present
Valid Cognition of the Measured World
Every quantum sensor lab builds its controller from scratch — LabVIEW here, a custom FPGA there, Python scripts held together with hope and grad-student labour. Each controller works for one instrument, one configuration, one set of assumptions. The knowledge is trapped in the wiring, illegible, unreproducible.
MāyāPramāṇa is a different approach: not a piece of hardware but a grammar — a way of expressing what any quantum sensor needs. Digital twins of specific instruments, built one at a time, until the common structure emerges. The name comes from Indian epistemology: pramāṇa means valid cognition, the reliable path from raw perception to justified knowledge.
Architecture: Pure Core / Effectful Shell
Following the functional architecture established in MayaPortal, the system separates pure computation from side effects:
- Pure core — All physics, signal processing, and estimation. Bloch equations, Kalman filters, PID controllers, lock-in detection. No hardware dependencies. Deterministic. Testable without a sensor.
- Effectful shell — ADC/DAC, FPGA drivers, data logging. As thin as possible. A different lab swaps one driver for another without touching physics code.
Three Languages, One Physics
| Language | Role |
|---|---|
| Haskell | Executable specification, QuickCheck properties — the physics as type-checked mathematics |
| C++23 | Deployment and performance, compile-time dimensional analysis, monadic composition from MayaPortal |
| Python | Interactive exploration, plotting, org-babel sessions, QuTiP integration |
All three must agree on the same physics. Cross-language validation follows the MayaJiva pattern: Python generates reference data, Haskell and C++ load and compare.
The Universal Grammar of Measurement
The same epistemic structure appears across sensor types:
- Feedback loops — PID, Kalman filtering, lock-in detection. The anumāna (inference) that transforms raw signal into calibrated measurement.
- Pulse sequences — The choreography of light and RF that interrogates the quantum state. Structured pratyakṣa (direct perception).
- State estimation — Bayesian machinery maintaining beliefs about system state given noisy observations.
- Noise models — Shot noise, technical noise, quantum projection noise. The limits of what can be known, honestly accounted for.
The same grammar describes an atomic magnetometer, an NV-diamond sensor, a gravimeter, an optical clock. The physics differs; the epistemology does not.
First Target: Atomic Magnetometer
The first digital twin models a Bell-Bloom atomic magnetometer: optical pumping, Larmor precession, RF driving, Faraday readout, lock-in demodulation, and PID feedback — each a pure function, composed into a controller, tested end-to-end against the Cramér-Rao bound.
Connections
- Inherits monadic composition and pure core / effectful shell from MayaPortal
- Inherits verified manuscript methodology and literate programming from BRAVLi
- Inherits human-AI collaboration principles from MayaDevGenI
- Shares cross-language validation with MayaJiva
Technical Stack
Haskell (QuickCheck, type-level physics) · C++23 (std::expected, concepts, constexpr) · Python (NumPy, SciPy, QuTiP, matplotlib) · Org-mode literate programming · Fisher information · Cramér-Rao bounds · Allan deviation