SPFRx - Qualification Test Preparation

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 work.  Successful SPFRx123 CDR is a requirement for the DSH Element CDR.

• gtest JSON renderer is implemented and tested into registerDef development tool
• Exception handling is updated for all Device Servers  within the SPFRx TANGO Monitor and Control framework
• SPFRx Gated spectrometer is implemented and tested
• SPFRx Controller Device Server is fully integrated with SPFRx Low Level Device servers, and is capable of providing monitor and control capabilities in line with what is required at DISH SPFRx Qualification Testing
• Feature improvements are demonstrated at OMC ART System Demo

CIPA team continued to support the DISH Digitiser work that uses the Talon hardware platform..

This Feature succeeded in addressing the preparations required in order to satisfy requirements for the impending SPFRx Qualification testing for the DISH Digitizer. The Talon-DX hardware is controlled by SPFRx software via TANGO device servers, and all necessary wrappers are in place in order to execute the required qualifications tests.

The Key Results satisfied during this Feature include KR1 and KR2 as specified in the Objective SPO-1368. Specifically, the key results achieved during this PI were:

• KR1 - Providing a functional control system for SPFRx Qualification Testing
• KR2 - Implement a gated spectrometer

More specifically, the following feature objectives were achieved:

• Exception handling is now updated for all low-level Device Servers operating within the SPFRx TANGO Monitor and Control framework on the Talon-DX based Hard Processor System.
• The SPFRx Gated spectrometer is implemented, tested and was demonstrated during OMC ART System Demo 12.5
• The SPFRx Controller Device Server was integrated with SPFRx Low Level Device servers, and is capable of providing monitor and control capabilities in line with what is required at DISH SPFRx Qualification Testing
• All necessary functions required within the Qualification Testing Hardware Access Layer (HAL) have been implemented, tested and are verified to function properly. These functions allow qualification test procedures to access, monitor and control the SPFRx via the Controller Device Server.

In addition, and in support of this work, the following objectives were realized:

• An operational qualification test environment, consisting of a TANGO DB and PyTango container were deployed and are in service of the qualification test environment.
• The registerDef tool has been updated to include a gtest JSON renderer, which has been tested and integrated into registerDef development tool

All TANGO Device Servers related to this project can be found in the following NRC Gitlab group:

https://gitlab.drao.nrc.ca/digital-systems/ska-spfrx/software/applications

The TANGO DB Environment, kubernetes cluster, helm chart and docker container definitions are found in the following repo:

https://gitlab.drao.nrc.ca/digital-systems/ska-spfrx/environments/spfrx-db-environment

The PyTango Environment, docker container definition is found in the following repo:

https://gitlab.drao.nrc.ca/digital-systems/ska-spfrx/environments/spfrx-rxpu-pytango

The integration environment, containing the Hardware Access Layer (HAL) is found in the following repo:

https://gitlab.drao.nrc.ca/digital-systems/ska-spfrx/integration/spfrx-qualification-environment

Note that the functioning of the SPFRx gated spectrometer is shceduled to be demonstrated at the PI 12 demo (Nov 30).