DSH Digitizer TALON-DX HPS Software Development

DSH SPFRx (Digitizer) RXPU uses the same TALON-DX card for communicating with digitizer modules located on the DSH indexer.  Software development required for SFPRx123 CDR has become critical path and requires CIPA team resources to make up schedule.  Rather than removing team members from CIPA, this software development work will moved into the scope of CIPA PI11 work.  Successful SPFRx123 CDR is a requirement for the DSH Element CDR.

1. Tango device specification JSON format is created and reviewed.
2. Tango device generation tool is implemented and tested.
3. SPFRx software is running on the RXPU TALON-DX HPS and interfacing with SPFRx firmware.
4. SPFRx software is running on the RXPU TALON-DX HPS exposes commands and attributes according to the SPFRx to DSH.LMC ICD.
5. All source code and test scripts are committed in Gitlab.

1. TANGO device server JSON schema specification created, reviewed and implemented as a part of the registerDef package (see link in comments)

2. registerDef package renderer for TANGO xmi files implemented and tested. All SPFRx device servers, in addition to several CIPA TDC device servers have been refactored to define their structure via this mechanism. See the registerDef repository in the DRAO gitlab for further information (link in comments)

3. SPFRx low-level device servers, providing monitor and control for firmware blocks residing on the Talon-DX FPGA have been designed and implemented using the CIPA Conan/gitlab-ci workflow.

• Basic unit tests have been generated and are a part of the CI workflow for each device server.
• Device servers have been tested against running firmware on the Talon-DX board
  Device servers repositories can be found at the links specified in the comments.

4. SPFRx testing scripts have been ported from original TCL/system-console (developed during Firmware prototyping) to PyTANGO, making use of low-level device servers running on the Talon-DX HPS to provide control for firmware IP in performing basic testing on the system. These tests have been demonstrated during OMC ART PI11 System Demo 11.5 Part #2 (2021-08-26). See link in comments.

5. SPFRx Controller has undergone a design process and an initial prototype implementation. The TANGO Device Server has been compiled and run on the Talon-DX HPS against firmware, and has successfully demonstrated the ability to communicate with low-level device servers in the process of performing basic bringup and sanity check tasks. Further integration work will be outlined in PI#12 Feature SP-1982. A link to the DRAO Gitlab code repository for this device server is in the comments.

6. Containerized environments were developed in order to allow for effective and manageable testing to occur on a network-isolated machine to support SPFRx development and testing of the monitor and control system. Link to the configuration of this environment is provided in the comments. We note here that future work is perhaps envisioned to involve migrating to the SKA standard kubernetes/docker environments to support this work, however this may depend on the timelines prior to DISH CDR.

7. All source code and test structures are committed and properly managed within the NRC/DRAO Gitlab repository.

8. The culmination of work performed on this feature during PI#11 was demonstrated during the OMC ART System Demo 11.5 Part 2, where monitor and control of the firmware via TANGO and PyTango was demonstrated. (link in comments).