Huntsman Telescope dome control

Code to run the Huntsman Telescope dome control hardware

Overview

The Huntsman Telescope dome control software has two components, one written in C++ the other in python.

The C++ component is a X2Dome driver that interfaces with TheSkyX and passes commands through to the python component. This is done using the gRPC framework, allowing the C++ component to pass information to the python component.

The python component is implemented on a raspberry pi that controls the dome rotation motor. It controls the activation of the motor and tracks the dome position using an encoder. It returns information (such as dome position) to the C++ component using gRPC as well.

The C++ code is built around Software Bisque's X2 standard. For more infomation on this see here <https://www.bisque.com/x2standard/class_x2_dome.html#a7ffd792950cdd0abe1b022e7a8caff9e>.

HOW TO RUN THE STUPID THING

For installation of dependencies/instructions for compiling and installing the required TheSkyX driver see sections below. Assuming everything is set up correctly, this is how you would set up the dome control system.

• Navigate to the directory containing the gRPC python server file
• $ cd huntsman-dome/domehunter/gRPC-server/
• Use the -h flag to get information on the available command line flags
• $ python huntsman_dome_server.py -h
• To run server in simulated hardware mode run with the -s flag
• $ python huntsman_dome_server.py -s
• Now the server is running, you may start TheSkyX
• Within TheSkyX go to the Dome Setup menu and select the Huntsman Telescope
• Open TheSkyX log window and place by the python server window to watch for activity/status messages

C++/gRPC Component

Requirements

grpc python For reference see here.

To install (on MacOS or Linux) the required grpc python packages run the following:

$ python -m pip install --upgrade pip
$ python -m pip install grpcio
$ python -m pip install grpcio-tools

grpc C++ For reference see here.

Detailed instructions to install from source on any OS can be found here.

For convenience a summary of the required steps is given below.

To install dependencies for a linux OS, run the following:

$ [sudo] apt install build-essential autoconf libtool pkg-config
$ [sudo] apt install libgflags-dev libgtest-dev
$ [sudo] apt install clang libc++-dev

To do the same on MacOS (with homebrew installed), run:

$ [sudo] xcode-select --install
$ brew install autoconf automake libtool shtool
$ brew install gflags

Now to build grpc from source on Linux or MacOS run the following:

$ cd /usr/local/bin/
$ git clone -b $(curl -L https://grpc.io/release) https://github.com/grpc/grpc
$ cd grpc/
$ git submodule update --init
$ make
$ make install
$ cd third_party/protobuf/
$ git submodule update --init --recursive
$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make check
$ make install

Alternatively to installing from source, you can install via homebrew on MacOS by running:

$ brew tap grpc/grpc
$ brew install -s -- --with-plugins grpc
$ brew install protobuf
$ brew install protobuf-c

The homebrew installation method has been tested on MacOS HighSierra. However, If problems occur during compilation (missing header files etc) you might want to try installing from source.

Compiling TheSkyX Driver

The files for compilation and installation are found in the domehunter/gRPC-TheSkyX-driver/ directory. The relevant files are;

• domelistHuntsmanDome.txt
• TheSkyX_plugin_[MAC,LINUX]_install.sh
• Makefile_[MAC,LINUX]

The first two are files are used to install the compiled C++ driver into TheSkyX application directory.

In order to compile the driver simply run the makefile recipe for your OS (LINUX/MAC):

$ cd domehunter/gRPC-TheSkyX-driver/
$ make -f Makefile_LINUX

This will produce a .so file in the domehunter/gRPC-TheSkyX-driver/ directory for Linux and a .dylib file for Mac. This file, as well as the domelistHuntsmanDome.txt file need to be copied into TheSkyX application directory. This can be done by running the installation script:

$ . TheSkyX_LINUX_plugin_install.sh

Replace LINUX with MAC if installing on a MacOS system and vice versa.

Once the driver is installed in TheSkyX, it can be selected from the dome selection menu. Before issuing any commands, start the domehunter/gRPC-server/huntsman_dome_server.py in a new terminal. When you issue a command through TheSkyX, the C++ driver will send a remote procedure call through to the gRPC python server.

The gRPC python server can be run in a communication test mode that doesn't require any hardware. It will simply return dummy messages back to the TheSkyX driver. To get help with running the server (in normal or testing mode etc), run the following command in terminal:

$ cd domehunter/gRPC-server/
$ python huntsman_dome_server.py -h

gRPC automatically generated files

In the domehunter/gRPC-TheSkyX-driver/ directory there are a number of shell scripts. These can be used to generate the gRPC files within the domehunter/gRPC-TheSkyX-driver/src/ directory. These scripts contain path variables that may need to be adjusted to your local machine. You shouldn't need to worry about this as the generated files are committed to the repository and shouldn't need to be generated (I think...?).

The code for the Huntsman dome driver is contained in the domehunter/gRPC-TheSkyX-driver/src directory. The code for the gRPC server that runs on the raspberryPi is contained in the domehunter/gRPC-server/ directory. These directories contain both human written files and files automatically generated by gRPC tools. The human written files are,

• main.cpp - establishes main library to X2 driver (mostly copy/paste from example)
• main.h - header for main.cpp
• x2dome.cpp - the library code that serves the RPC from TSX to python server
• x2dome.h - header for x2dome.cpp
• hx2dome.proto - language agnostic RPC definitions used by everthing
• huntsman_dome_server.py - python server that receives RPC from TSX

The remaining cpp and python files are automatically produced by gRPC and shouldn't need to be looked at. If for some reason you want to generate these files yourself, you can use the following shell scripts:

$ domehunter/gRPC-TheSkyX-driver/generate_grpc_cpp_code.sh
$ domehunter/gRPC-server/generate_grpc_python_code.sh

Python RaspberryPi Component

Requirements

Required:

• gpiozero python library

Optional:

• smbus and sn3218 python libraries

Note:

The smbus and sn3218 are used to control the automationHAT status LEDs. If you plan on running the code without the automationHAT these libraries aren't required.

Getting Started

Follow the example jupyter notebook in the examples direction (dome_control_example). The automationHAT hardware is not required to run the code in testing mode.

Tests

In order to run the test suite, go to the source direction (huntsman-dome/) and run the following command:

$ python setup.py test --coverage

Which will produce a coverage report in huntsman-dome/htmlcov

License

This project is Copyright (c) Huntsman Team and licensed under the terms of the BSD 3-Clause license. This package is based upon the Astropy package template which is licensed under the BSD 3-clause licence. See the licenses folder for more information.