A Software Architecture for Realtime Data Acquisition, Instrument Control and Command Processing

Abstract

In this paper we describe the flight software for the SETS (Shuttle Electrodynamic Tethered System) experiment. The SETS experiment will fly as part of the TSS-1 (Tethered Satellite System) experiment on STS-46 currently scheduled for July 1992. The software consists of two major components: the SETSOS (SETS Operating System) and the SETS Application. The SETSOS is a UNIX-like operating system developed especially for realtime data acquisition, instrument control and command processing. The SETSOS, like all operating systems, provides resource management for application programs. It is UNIX-like in that access to resources is provided through a standard set of UNIX system calls. The SETSOS also implements the standard UNIX I/O model and a hierarchical file system. In addition to providing access to physical devices, the SETSOS provides support for two virtual devices: a packet-based data device and a command device. The packet-based data device is used by applications to place data into the telemetry stream. The command device is used to manage commands from the command uplink as well as other sources including other applications and other processors. The SETS Application is the primary program which runs under the SETSOS to handle data acquisition, instrument control and command processing. It executes as 5 separate processes, each performing a special task. The tasks include housekeeping data acquisition, limit checking, timeline management, and command processing. The processes communicate via shared memory. Time critical processing is coordinated by using signals and interrupts. In addition to a description of the software, we will discuss the relative merits and tradeoffs of using such a system design for command processing and data acquisition.