The GroundSystem directory contains the new Ground System project for the cFS, that incorporates the main window to launch commands and telemetry systems, and other utilities like FDL/FUL and FT managers to send and receive files. The main window runs alongside the Routing Service (RoutingService.py
). The Routing Service handles all incoming data and publishes (PUB/SUB) the data to specific ZeroMQ channels so that the different ground system utilities can receive (subscribe) only the desired data.
This ground system supports commanding and receiving telemetry from multiple spacecraft using UDP.
The Ground System contains the main window that lets you launch the different utilities.
To start receiving data from the cFS, you need to enable telemetry first. To enable telemetry:
- click the "Start Command System" button from the main window,
- then from the Command System Main Page click the "Enable Tlm" button (you will need to enter the target/destination IP address as an input to this command).
Note: The Main Window needs to be opened at all times so that the telemetry messages can be forwarded to the Telemetry System.
The Ground System will automatically detect the spacecraft when it starts sending the telemetry, and it will be added to the IP addresses list. You can select the spacecraft from the list, and start Telemetry System to receive its data. If 'All' spacecraft are selected, you can start Telemetry System to display the packet count from multiple spacecraft (if it detected more than one).
Future enhancements:
- Detect different spacecraft based on telemetry header (spacecraft
id
) data instead of using the spacecraft IP address. - Add instructions for Windows.
Before launching the Ground System make sure that:
- PyQt5 is installed,
- PyZMQ is installed,
- cmdUtil is compiled.
Installing and running cFS Ground System on Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install python3-pyqt5
sudo apt-get install python3-zmq
sudo apt-get install libcanberra-gtk-module
make -C Subsystems/cmdUtil
python3 GroundSystem.py
The historically included instructions for running on macOS or CentOS are included at the bottom of this document for reference. Please note that instructions have not been maintained. Welcoming instruction contributions if any of these are your platform of choice.
This works for both macOS and Ubuntu systems.
The requirements.txt file is located directly inside the cFS-GroundSystem/
$ pip3 install -r requirements.txt
$ pip3 install -e relative/path/to/cFS-GroundSystem
$ cFS-GroundSystem
This section was made to help developers who are adding core Flight Software (cFS) Applications to the Python-based Ground System that comes with this cFS distribution.
The CHeaderParser.py
program that should be found in:
GroundSystem/Subsystems/cmdGui
Is an interactive, command-line based program to help walk developers through the process of adding custom cFS applications to the Ground System. Along with CHeaderParser.py
is a configuration file that CHeaderParser uses to find the proper header files for your "new" cFS application. This file is named CHeaderParser-hdr-paths.txt
, and should be placed in the same directory as CHeaderParser.py
.
Expected file structure:
cFE-6.4.x-OSS-release/cfe/tools/cFS-GroundSystem/Subsystems/cmdGui/CHeaderParser.py
cFE-6.4.x-OSS-release/cfe/tools/cFS-GroundSystem/Subsystems/cmdGui/CHeaderParser-hdr-paths.txt
cFE-6.4.x-OSS-release/cfe/tools/cFS-GroundSystem/Subsystems/cmdGui/CommandFiles/
cFE-6.4.x-OSS-release/cfe/tools/cFS-GroundSystem/Subsystems/cmdGui/ParameterFiles/
cFE-6.4.x-OSS-release/cfe/tools/cFS-GroundSystem/Subsystems/cmdGui/command-pages.txt
Steps to adding application commands to the Ground System:
-
Edit
CHeaderParser-hdr-paths.txt
:- Locate any header files that contain command code definitions or command structure definitions. These files typically end in
*app_msg.h
or*app_msgdefs.h
but could be named anything. - Add each one of the paths to a new line in
CHeaderParser-hdr-paths.txt
. - Comment out any paths/lines that aren't needed with
#
(at the beginning of the line).
- Locate any header files that contain command code definitions or command structure definitions. These files typically end in
-
Run CHeaderParser:
- Call CHeaderParser using python:
python3 CHeaderParser.py
- The program will prompt you to enter a filename for the application. This will create a pickle file for your application named
CommandFiles/<user_defined_name>
. Notice that this file will be stored in theCommandFiles
directory. This same filename will be used incommand-pages.txt
later. - Type
yes
if any commands in your application have parameters. The program will then look through the provided header files fordefinitions.pick
which-ever definitions describe related command codes (one at a time, the program will prompt you for the next command code after all parameters have been added for the current command). - Select the appropriate command structure for the selected command. The program will show all structures that it could find in the provided header files. Enter the index of the command structure (the corresponding index should be above the command structure).
- Select any parameters from the structure that apply. Once you have selected all applicable lines from the command structure, enter
-1
to finish. This will create a pickle file for the command/parameters namedParameterFiles/<command_name>
. Notice that this file will be stored in theParameterFiles
directory.
- Call CHeaderParser using python:
-
Update
command-pages.txt
(CSV):- Column 1 - Title of your application (whatever you want it called).
- Column 2 - filename of your application (chosen in Step 2.ii) under
CommandFiles
directory. - Column 3 - Message ID for Application Commands (typically defined in
mission_msgids.h
). - Column 4 - Endianess (default little endian:
LE
). - Column 5 - PyGUI Page (default:
UdpCommands.py
). - Column 6 - Command Send Address (default:
127.0.0.1
). - Column 7 - Command Send Port (default:
1234
).
Notes:
- USE ONLY SPACES, NO TABS (Remember, it's Python).
- Don't leave any empty lines in
command-pages.txt
, this could cause errors when runningGroundSystem.py
andCommandSystem.py
.
After completing these steps, restart the Ground System and the changes should have taken effect.
Traceback:
Calling cmdUtil from Parameter.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "Parameter.py", line 100, in ProcessSendButton subprocess.Popen(cmd_args, stdout=subprocess.PIPE) File "/usr/lib/python3.7/subprocess.py", line 642, in __init__ errread, errwrite) File "/usr/lib/python3.7/subprocess.py", line 1234, in _execute_child raise child_exception OSError: [Errno 8] Exec format error
Fix: This problem is most likely caused by calling cmdUtil
without compiling it. This issue has also been found to occur when the cmdUtil
executable has been compressed/decompressed. To fix this problem, use the Makefile
inside of the cmdUtil
directory to compile or recompile (in the case after decompressing).
$ cd Subsystems/cmdUtil $ make $ cd ../.. $ python3 GroundSystem.py
These are NOT kept up-to-date, but included for historical reference (may be easier than starting from scratch)
$ brew install pyqt
$ brew install zeromq
$ ( cd Subsystems/cmdUtil/ && make )
$ python GroundSystem.py
$ su
$ <type password="">
$ yum -y update</type>
If you are on a 64-bit CentOS / RHEL based system:
$ wget <http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm>
$ rpm -ivh epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
If you are on a 32-bit CentOS / RHEL based system:
$ wget <http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm>
$ rpm -ivh epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
$ yum install -y python-pip
$ yum install -y python-devel
$ yum install -y uuid-devel
$ yum install -y pkgconfig
$ yum install -y libtool
$ yum install -y gcc-c++
$ wget <http://download.zeromq.org/zeromq-4.0.5.tar.gz>
$ tar xzvf zeromq-4.0.5.tar.gz
$ cd zeromq-4.0.5
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install
$ echo /usr/local/lib > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf
$ ldconfig
$ pip install pyzmq
$ yum install -y PyQt4
$ yum install -y qt qt-demos qt-designer qt4 qt4-designer
$ python GroundSystem.py