JASPER: Open-Source Spectroscopy for Everyday Science

Forensic science is meant to solve real-world problems. Yet, in everyday life, keeping these powerful analytical tools locked inside elite, high-cost labs feels like flogging a dead horse. The real need of the hour isn't just solving crimes after they happen—it is equipping ordinary citizens with open-source tools to analyze the world around them in real-time. We need to democratize the technology that tests the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the food we consume every single day.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. We cannot expect open-source equivalents for every complex analytical instrument overnight, but we must begin somewhere. We chose spectrometers, and we call our project JASPER (Just Another SPectrometER? Not quite). It is a platform built entirely on the principles of open-source hardware and the Right to Repair.

The JASPER VIS-NIR Spectrometer

At its core, the system utilizes:

• A blazed reflective grating to split light into its component wavelengths.

• A line-array CMOS sensor to capture the diffracted light and produce
  digital spectra.

Open & Customisable:

• Both the CMOS driver hardware and the optical spectrometer design are released entirely under open-source licenses.

• We have built an open design tool that allows users to customize their spectral span and resolution without needing deep expertise in optical engineering. Check out the simulator here: https://checkag-spectrometer-simulator-user-input-wzrswt.streamlit.app/
  

Why It Matters

• Breaking Barriers: Open-source analytical instruments can transform science education, grassroots food safety, and local environmental monitoring.

• A Stepping Stone: While citizen science will eventually benefit from open-source Raman and FTIR instruments, mastering VIS-NIR is our crucial first step.

• Democratizing Science: Transitioning spectroscopy from a black box to transparent, reproducible open-source tech ensures innovation moves beyond proprietary corporate labs.

Use Cases & Applications

• Dairy Quality Control: Detecting adulterants like urea or detergent in milk, and measuring fat and protein concentrations.

• Environmental Monitoring: Adapting the core optical bench for field-based air and water quality analysis.

• Chemometric Modeling: Leveraging open-source Python libraries (like Scikit-Learn or SciPy) to build statistical calibration models and predict unknown chemical concentrations from spectral data.

Community & Collaboration

The project is actively being built in public. You can follow our hardware journey, schematics, and logs here: https://hackaday.io/project/202421-jasper-vis-nir-spectrometer

Wavelength Calibration Spectra showing Captured Neon Emission Peaks

JASPER-VIS-NIR- Enclosure and Industrial Product Design

We welcome contributions ranging from firmware optimisations to firmware drivers and new field use cases. Together, we can ensure JASPER reaches the hands of students, researchers, and grassroots communities who need it most.