Comb Data Fabric - The Self-Healing Backbone
The Comb Data Fabric (CDF) is the connective tissue beneath NectarNet Mesh. Every sensor stream, every alarm, and every MELISSA query crosses the fabric over the Waggle Protocol. The CDF is built so that nodes, links, and whole cells can fail without the network failing — telemetry simply finds another path through the comb.
The Self-Healing Mesh Backbone
The CDF carries all telemetry and MELISSA traffic across the conservancy. It is a true mesh — there is no core, no central switch, no single hub whose loss would darken the network. Three design principles define it.
Self-Healing Routing
Each node continuously gossips link health to its neighbours. When a hop degrades or drops, traffic re-converges around the fault in milliseconds — the comb reroutes around the dead cell without operator action and without losing the stream.
No Single Point of Failure
Every payload has at least two disjoint paths to its destination. Relay masts, drone nodes, and fabric gateways are all redundant, so the loss of any one node — or any one corridor — never partitions the network from MELISSA.
Waggle Protocol
Named for the honeybee waggle dance, the protocol lets nodes advertise the best direction and "distance" to a destination the way a forager dances a bearing to a flower. Routes are learned, not configured.
Fabric Layers & Components
The CDF is organised as a stack of layers, each with a defined function and its own redundancy posture. Together they make the fabric self-healing end to end.
| Layer / component | Function | Redundancy |
|---|---|---|
| Field node link | First-hop radio carrying raw sensor frames from hive packages onto the mesh. | Dual-band; each node sees ≥ 2 neighbours. |
| Drone-relay node | Mobile and mast relays that extend reach across floral corridors and bridge gaps. | N+1 per corridor; Forager drones fill coverage holes. |
| Waggle routing layer | Learns and advertises least-cost paths; recomputes on any link change. | Distributed — no controller; every node routes. |
| Transport & framing | Orders, acknowledges, and retransmits telemetry and MELISSA query frames. | Multipath; disjoint primary + backup path per flow. |
| Fabric gateway | Bridges the mesh into the MELISSA analytics layer and the Live Command Wall. | Active/active gateway pair, auto-failover. |
| Time & integrity | Mesh-wide clock sync and frame integrity so streams stitch correctly at MELISSA. | Multiple time sources; voting on disagreement. |
Fabric at a Glance
Snapshot figures below are a static reference (2091 baseline). For live values see the Live Command Wall; for how each figure is defined, see the Metrics catalogue.
Related
The fabric sits between the sensing mesh and the analytics layer. See also: